Lydia Luce transforms hardship into concord and survival into serenity on her third album ‘Mammoth,’ a sweeping and intimate file born from continual ache, resilience, and the embrace of latest life. The Nashville singer/songwriter sat down with Atwood Journal to debate the climb that impressed the tender title observe, her journey by means of therapeutic and motherhood, and the teachings she’s carrying into her subsequent chapter of life.
Stream: “Mammoth” – Lydia Luce
I would like whoever is listening to my new album or watching the music movies to be impressed to go outdoors and sit within the grass.
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“Sounds just like the bushes and the waves and a forest stream.”
That’s how somebody just lately described Lydia Luce’s music – and for the Nashville-based singer/songwriter, it couldn’t really feel extra true. A lifelong nature lover and creator, Luce has lengthy discovered her voice within the areas the place the pure world and the human spirit intertwine. “I would like whoever is listening to my new album or watching the music movies to be impressed to go outdoors and sit within the grass,” she says. That want – to attach individuals not simply to her story, however to one thing bigger than themselves – pulses on the core of her third studio album, Mammoth.
Out October 31st by way of Tone Tree Music, Mammoth is each a private reckoning and a hard-earned celebration: A file that paperwork Lydia Luce’s therapeutic from continual ache, her embrace of motherhood, and her arrival at a spot of peace she as soon as feared she would possibly by no means discover. It’s an album steeped within the textures of the pure world, woven by means of with discipline recordings, ambient layers, and songs that meditate on resilience, love, and belief. And at its heart is the title observe – a single reminiscence that got here to embody the larger journey behind the entire file.
I sweat it out on the primary ascent
June lake passing to the left of us
Eyes down higher watch my step
I must know learn how to belief myself
Are you able to stroll me by means of this?
I used to be bitching ‘bout your worn-out tent
Silver moon shining on our pores and skin
How did you see me by means of the bitterness
You held me tight once I wanted it
Are you able to maintain me by means of this?
Are you able to maintain me by means of this?
– “Mammoth,” Lydia Luce
A young, windswept meditation on resilience, “Mammoth” is a dreamy indie people hymn that climbs slowly, steadily, towards mild. With close-miked vocals and hushed acoustic guitar plucks, it feels as intimate as a whispered prayer and as huge because the mountain that impressed it. “Felt my heartbeat in my fingertips,” she sings, and it lands like a shiver – a quiet, weak second of give up that stays with you lengthy after the track ends.
Written with Collin Pastore and Jake Finch, “Mammoth” was born from a reminiscence – a strenuous hike up Mount Ritter in California over ten years in the past –
– nevertheless it reverberates with the emotional weight of a bigger journey: Luce’s therapeutic from continual ache and an extended stretch of bodily uncertainty. “I sweat it out on the primary ascent,” she opens, “June lake passing to the left of us / Eyes down, higher watch my step – I must know learn how to belief myself.” The lyrics stroll us by means of the climb and the metaphor it got here to carry: Restoration not as a straight path, however as a switchback-laced mountain – daunting, exhausting, and stuffed with surprising grace.
“The sheer issue of all of it caught with me,” she recollects. “Some moments simply persist with you want that.”
I can see all of it, I shut my eyes
It’s terrible quiet
Nearer to Andromeda
I hear my ideas they’re approaching
And I begin to fall getting dizzy from
The burden of all of it
You stroll me by means of this
Greater than only a reminiscence, the track grew to become a mirror for the teachings Luce was studying in actual time: That therapeutic is nonlinear, that reaching out to these round you is its personal type of energy, and that inside peace is one thing you stroll towards slowly, one step at a time. “The track is about asking for assist,” she explains. “One thing that I’ve needed to discover ways to do whereas therapeutic by means of my accidents.”
“I cherished penning this with [Jake and Collin],” Luce shares. “We stored the guitar components from the day we wrote it as a result of they’re so unimaginable! The music video was created with Jason Lee Denton and Aliegh Shields. We hiked over 30 miles on the Rocky Mountains with my husband Ryan aiding. It was an extremely magical time in nature with buds. I’m grateful that we now have this time capsule of a video to recollect it.”
In some ways, the music video mirrors the track’s spirit: A testomony to perseverance, companionship, and the fantastic thing about leaning on others when the climb feels too steep.
Produced with longtime collaborator Jordan Lehning, Mammoth (out October 31) was recorded at Actual World Studios within the English countryside, the place days of creation bled into household meals and evenings of shared music-making – a communal expertise that bleeds into the songs themselves. Impressed by ambient textures and discipline recordings of the pure world, the album pulls us right into a panorama of serenity and survival – one which honors ache with out being outlined by it. On “Mammoth,” you’ll be able to hear the stillness: The pause between ideas, the breath earlier than the plunge. “When the water’s this chilly, you gotta plunge proper in / I shut my eyes, you depend down from 10.”
Felt my heartbeat in my fingertips
My physique telling me that I ought to stop
I’ve by no means been the kind for giving in
However is it dwelling if it’s gotta really feel like this?
Are you able to stroll me by means of this?
The place her final album, Florida Woman, was about true acceptance, Mammoth is about what comes after. “I feel this album displays the place we’ve settled into,” she says, talking of her life together with her husband and soon-to-be-born first youngster. “A spot that’s consolation and peace and the aftermath of the previous few years of therapeutic – continual ache, a twister, a pandemic, studying learn how to be in a wholesome relationship. I’m really trying ahead to this subsequent chapter of life as a brand new mom.”
Songs like “Florence” and “Wisteria” testify to that peace: Lullabies of longing, gratitude, and residential. Elsewhere, tracks like “Stomach,” “Deep Finish,” and “Strolling Tune” hint the peaks and valleys of restoration, all affected person reminders that life is a collection of surprising twists and shock turns, each main us ahead.
That wider panorama comes into sharp give attention to “Mammoth,” the place a single reminiscence turns into a metaphor for Luce’s complete journey.
It’s a track about humility and self-acceptance, about trusting somebody – or one thing – to stroll you thru it. And in Luce’s fingers, it turns into one thing restorative: A time capsule, sure, but in addition a lighthouse. A softly stirring reminder that peace isn’t passive – it’s one thing we earn, inch by inch, track by track.
I let it out on the ultimate stretch
And walked straight out to the rivers edge
When the waters this chilly
you gotta plunge proper in
I shut my eyes, you depend down from 10
Are you able to speak me by means of this?
Are you able to stroll me by means of?
Are you able to get me by means of?
Atwood Journal sat down with Lydia Luce to debate her new file, the journey that formed it, and the teachings she’s carrying into this subsequent chapter of life. Mammoth is an album of switchbacks and summits that transforms battle into serenity, grief into grace, and uncertainty into belief.
Learn on as Luce opens up about therapeutic, nature, motherhood, and the ability of accepting one’s personal vulnerability. “This file seems like a delicate hug and an invite to pause or take a stroll outdoors,” she smiles. “I hope it brings individuals peace when listening to it.”
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A CONVERSATION WITH LYDIA LUCE
Atwood Journal: Lydia, for many who are simply discovering you right now by means of this writeup, what would you like them to learn about you and your music?
Lydia Luce: Somebody just lately described my music as “sounds just like the bushes and the waves and a forest stream.” I used to be so moved and honored by that suggestion, and it does really feel prefer it captures what’s essential to me as a nature lover and creator. I would like whoever is listening to my new album or watching the music movies to be impressed to go outdoors and sit within the grass.
Final we spoke was round your third album Florida Woman, which you described as being about “true acceptance.” What’s your relationship like with that file and its songs, almost two years after its launch?
Lydia Luce: I really feel grateful for the private work that I did to search out that true acceptance. Accepting that I wanted to cease enjoying my devices to start to search out therapeutic after my herniated disc. Accepting that I wanted to get bilateral carpal tunnel surgical procedure additional prolonging my means to play. I took it day-to-day doing PT, listening to my physique and listening to its limits. I accepted that I’ll need to say no to sure issues that don’t align with what my physique is telling me it wants. I’m in such a phenomenal place with my therapeutic. I’ve flare ups, however I don’t panic. I breathe by means of them having discovered that in a number of days the ache will lower, and I’ll get by means of this like I’ve time and time once more.
Somebody just lately described my music as “sounds just like the bushes and the waves and a forest stream.” I used to be so moved and honored by that suggestion, and it does really feel prefer it captures what’s essential to me as a nature lover and creator.
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Equally, the place do you’re feeling your new album Mammoth matches in your discography? In case your final file was about acceptance, what is that this one “about”?
Lydia Luce: My husband and I predict our first kiddo the month after my new album comes out. Final 12 months once I was in the course of determining my continual ache and accidents, I had such a giant concern that I’d by no means be capable to maintain my child with out ache. I now not have that concern. I do know will probably be difficult, and it might set off a few of my ache, however I’ve the instruments to get by means of it and belief that I’ll take heed to my physique.
My associate has been the most important help to me over the previous few years coping with my continual ache and now in my being pregnant. We now have settled into this stunning vibrant life collectively and bringing a baby into the fold seems like such an honor. I feel this album displays the place we’ve settled into. A spot that’s consolation and peace and the aftermath of the previous few years of therapeutic (continual ache, a twister, a pandemic, studying learn how to be in a wholesome relationship). I’m really trying ahead to this subsequent chapter of life as a brand new mom.
Are you able to inform me a bit concerning the album’s first two singles, “Florence” and “Wisteria”?
Lydia Luce: “Florence” is a lullaby I wrote a 12 months and a half in the past whereas imagining myself as a mom. My associate and I had been making an attempt to get pregnant for a few 12 months and a half and had an appointment April 11 to go to the Nashville Fertility Clinic to debate IVF therapy. Florence got here out April 24 and we came upon we have been pregnant March 14! All extremely serendipitous timing.
“Wisteria” is about discovering peace at residence and feeling so hopeful concerning the future. There’s a line that claims, “I hear you singing softly from someplace in the home, a light-weight is pouring in, it touches each inch round.” That’s about my husband. We each earn a living from home and generally I’ll hear him singing our laughing at himself, and I simply smile and really feel so grateful for our little life collectively.
What is the story behind the title observe, “Mammoth” – and why did you in the end identify the album after it?
Lydia Luce: “Mammoth” was impressed by a hike I did in my twenties out within the Sierras. It was so difficult, and I needed to hire crampons, an ice choose, and a helmet to rise up that mountain. The track is about asking for assist. One thing that I’ve needed to discover ways to do whereas therapeutic by means of my accidents.
You have talked about how this track was impressed by a hike of Mount Ritter in Mammoth, California eleven years in the past. I will be trustworthy, I can barely keep in mind what I ate for dinner final night time, not to mention a hike over a decade in the past. What made that occasion so memorable, all these years later?
Lydia Luce: I feel the sheer issue of all of it caught with me. It was a very new expertise for me and pushed me to my limits. I felt so completed making it again to the automobile and leaping into June Lake on the finish of these three days. Some moments simply persist with you want that.
Your lyrics appear to dwell in-between the bodily world and the interior dialogue. What is that this track about, for you?
Lydia Luce: After I was writing the track with Collin Pastore and Jake Finch, it grew to become simple to narrate a difficult hike to the height of a mountain to being in the course of a disaster. When you’ll be able to see the highest of the mountain and it appears so daunting and much manner, and little by little, switchback after switchback, you make your method to the highest. Then follows a valley and one other peak! It’s simply the rhythm of life and its ups and downs, and taking it second by second is the one manner by means of.
It grew to become simple to narrate a difficult hike to the height of a mountain to being in the course of a disaster… It’s simply the rhythm of life and its ups and downs, and taking it second by second is the one manner by means of.
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How does this observe match into the general narrative of Mammoth?
Lydia Luce: I feel I selected it because the title observe for a motive. It units the scene for lots of the songs on the file. “Stomach,” which is about being affected person with your self as you heal, “Deep Finish,” which is about being lifeless heart in the course of the disaster, “Strolling Tune,” which is about accepting that this shit will simply hold taking place and all we will do is breathe and hold transferring by means of it. “Mammoth,” asking for assistance is one piece of the general therapeutic journey.
I truly had the dignity of interviewing Jordan Lehning, and later premiering considered one of his songs, a number of years in the past! Good man, nice ear. What was working with him like, each in making this specific track and in the end the total album?
Lydia Luce: Jordan and I’ve turn into so shut through the years. He’s my enterprise associate in Lockeland Strings, we made my first album Azalea collectively again in 2017, then Darkish River in 2019. We traveled with each of our households to make Mammoth over within the UK at Actual World Studios. He seems like household to me at this level and its extremely simple to work collectively. He’s a musical genius and so inspiring to me.
Making the file at Actual World was a dream. We had household meals collectively and created within the gorgeous countryside studio throughout the day. After we completed the file, we traveled to Paris to do a Lockeland Strings present. Looks like we’re on this huge ole musical journey collectively, and I don’t see an finish in sight.
What do you hope listeners take away from “Mammoth,” and what have you ever taken away from creating it and now placing it out?
Lydia Luce: There’s an instrumental track on the file referred to as “Signet” named after all the child swans across the studio. Joe Pisapia, Jordan and Jason Lehning, Ryan Usher and I created it within the room. This file seems like a delicate hug and an invite to pause or take a stroll outdoors. I hope it brings individuals peace when listening to it.
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:: stream/buy “Mammoth” right here ::
:: join with Lydia Luce right here ::
:: pre-save Mammoth right here ::
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Stream: “Mammoth” – Lydia Luce
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