FEATURE: Spotlight: Lucy Tun — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Lucy Tun

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AN artist quite new to me…

who I know is going to be doing incredible things next year is Lucy Tun. I am going to come to some interviews with this amazing artist. Before that, here is some biography about someone that everyone needs to check out. One of those artists who will definitely make an impression in 2024:

“There aren’t many artists who cite Björk, anime, death metal and Ru Paul’s Drag Race as their core influences. But then, Lucy Tun isn’t like most artists. Having burst onto the scene under the alias LCYTN back in 2018 with her self-released debut EP, Good Nights Bad Stories – written, produced, mixed and mastered entirely solo – the British Burmese musician followed it up with the addictive bedroom pop single “Ride”, which has almost half a million streams on Spotify. Now 23, Lucy (a proud Aquarius) has spent the pandemic further honing her sound, returning this summer to release much-anticipated new music under her real name.

Impressively, Lucy has built up a cult following in her native Myanmar. Past releases have topped national charts and in 2019 she performed to over 60,000 people at the famously high-octane New Year’s Eve countdown show in Yangon. She’s in demand at home in London too, with support from industry heavyweights on BBC Introducing and Radio 1. On top of being an accomplished singer, songwriter and producer, Lucy is a skilled DJ with monthly radio shows on Foundation FM and Balamii; not to mention the fact that she was the first-ever artist to livestream a set from London’s Facebook Studios. Pre-lockdown, she even hosted a regular club night, LCYTN & Friends. And the fashion world can’t get enough of her either — Gucci called on her to DJ the launch of their Jackie 1961 bag, Fred Perry highlighted her as a talent to watch and i-D featured her in their Summer 2021 issue.

With a creative output as diverse as her influences, Lucy is as comfortable among the glitter of radio-friendly pop and R&B as she is exploring a more electronic underworld: her music shimmers with impish, hyperactive energy undercut with potent basslines. She isn’t afraid to get introspective either, exploring themes like heartbreak, the complexities of growing up, womanhood and mental escapism. Her genre-defying song catalogue keeps listeners on their toes, weaving lofi 808-smattered production with the joyous familiarity of mainstream 00s pop. You simply can’t keep her in a box”.

I will come to some 2023 interview very soon. It is worth heading back to last year. With there being this early excitement and buzz around her, it is interesting hearing from Tun and how she feels the music landscape has changed when it comes to exposure for Asian women. It is clear that there have been some real changes and steps. NOTION spoke with an artist who has undergone change and a coming of age process:

“In 2018, Lucy Tun — then known through her tracks as LCYTN — had promised her parents that she would hit pause on her music passion to focus on her Economics degree. Only on a family trip to Burma, where her bilingual lyrics had attracted a fast-growing fan base, did her parents find out that she had not in fact abandoned her music dream. Far from it, fans were recognising her from billboard ads and approaching her in public.

A plot twist like a main character identity reveal would usually be the makings of a third act conflict, but for Lucy Tun it was just the beginning. This year, with two EPs around the corner and a full album scheduled for 2022, she’s reintroducing herself without the moniker. There’s power in a name, and I’m curious about the reasons behind the rebrand. “I have a clear objective now. I don’t want to feel limited in my identity as an artist,” she explains. “Becoming more known and more visible has been a big personal change, and I’m still taking it all in. I’m naturally quite a sensitive and anxious person, so sometimes the feeling of having eyes on you will make you a little selfconscious and less experimental.” Her visibility in the public eye has recalibrated her vision of success, too. “I guess it’s all about finding that sweet spot between wanting to give my fans something to enjoy and wanting to create something new for myself.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Ngai

Lucy’s Burmese identity is in many ways the driving force behind her pursuit of creative freedom. Burma, or Myanmar, is a Southeast Asian country where free speech and digital media censorship are ongoing matters of contention. “I was aware that the creative scenes in Myanmar and the UK were completely different, but making music in both places has opened my eyes to the value of expression,” Lucy says. “I always saw myself to be moving against the tide and moving against stereotypes, starting with my parents’ wariness of non-traditional career paths — which I’m sure many children of first-generation diaspora parents will relate to. Now I have a better appreciation of their perspective.”

Then there’s the internet, which Lucy cites as her muse. “I guess it’s weird to say that the internet is a subculture now, but it definitely was a subculture when I discovered YouTube back in 2007. Gaming culture, Nintendo specifically, was a bonding activity growing up. I had internet friends who were also creatives. Actually, one of them joined me on my first EP and that is kind of how it all started for me. I learned to produce online, I learned to DJ on digital before vinyl, so the internet is probably one of my greatest inspirations.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Ngai

Now, Lucy sees a golden era for Asian women in music and recalls how the music scene has shifted since her childhood. “The first time I saw Asians killing it in mainstream music was in the rise of J-pop and K-pop. When I was younger there wasn’t really any conversation about Asians in music. Now we have Peggy Gou, Yaeji, Rina Sawayama, Olivia Rodrigo. I’m proud to be representing Southeast Asia in particular.”

Her upcoming work will visit the themes of womanhood, introspection, taking risks and coming of age, delving deeper than her first EP— 2018’s Good Nights Bad Stories — the songwriting on which Lucy looks back critically. “The lyrics weren’t necessarily my best work. I was a first year uni student, and my focus was on having fun and creating new experiences — I never wanted to delve too deep,” she explains. But DJing has given her an edge as a songwriter. “I knew when I started music that I wanted to diversify my sound, so I spent seven or eight months learning how to DJ. From behind the decks there is some comfort in invisibility. It’s therapeutic.” It’s also a learning experience that has nurtured a greater appreciation for style and production. “Growing up, I just listened to whatever was immediate to me. DJing opened doors to a side of music I hadn’t imagined — there are songs without lyrics, songs without any inherent meaning, songs that are just pure serotonin. Then there’s the fact that it’s not your own music. It’s comforting and humbling at the same time.”

She dreams of future collaborations with artists like Pharrell and Kevin Parker (aka Tame Impala), and I can almost hear it already. “Pharrell has such a great philosophy of success — you have to try and fail to succeed,” Lucy tells me. “I’ve always been inspired by him. He has N.E.R.D., The Neptunes, his own solo art, and so many unexpected collaborations in music and business. Tame Impala is also fascinating to me. The fact that he is a solo artist but he’s often mistaken for a band, that’s the kind of range I aspire to achieve.”

For now, Lucy seeks fluency — from her thoughts to her lyrics, from LCYTN to Lucy Tun, from English to Burmese, and interestingly, from music to fashion. “I feel like any strong songwriter is also an amazing communicator, not just with words, but with telling visual stories too. I have always been interested in fashion and sometimes I make my own clothes. Yes, I knit and crochet, it’s my latest Gen Z personality trait!” she laughs. “It’s summer now, but when it gets colder you’ll see me in an obnoxiously colourful crochet hat or something…”

“I feel most at ease when it’s just me in my room, just making whatever I feel like, dressed up in something mismatched and colourful and wacky. My friends will lovingly give me the side-eye for it, but like Pharrell said — no success without failure”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Barney and Oscar Ferguson

Released last month, the Unreal E.P. is one of Lucy Tun’s finest releases. Seven incredible and distinct songs from an artist who is absolutely essential listening. I think that we are going to hear a lot of great things from Lucy Tun next year. It is exciting to hear such a remarkable artist take strides. In September, NME featured an original and thrilling Electronic voice from London’s underground:

“After finishing a degree in economics and Burmese during the pandemic, and fighting through the same sense of loss and disconnection that we all experienced, Tun returned in 2021 with a new project under her own name. Her music as Lucy Tun reflects these personal changes and a desire to embrace being in the limelight.

Debut EP ‘Unreal’ (due November 10), is simultaneously a personal statement from Tun, but also her most collaborative work yet. The recent TikTok hit ‘Kulture Klub’, written with producer J. Ar. J, is a pop smash dripping with charisma and snapping 808s, while thrilling new single ‘Rabbit Hole’ saw her working with older brother Daniel, who gives the track an indie leaning.

“While I was playing the riff, I was thinking of ‘90s stuff like Garbage,” Daniel tells NME on the video shoot for the song in north London. “I think it definitely sounds a bit like a Garbage song.

“…you should check out Garbage, Lucy!” he adds, laughing.

She responds: “I thought you were telling me my song sounds fucking garbage!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Barney and Oscar Ferguson

How does your work as a DJ and producer intersect with your pop music and singing? Do you see them as working hand-in-hand?

“It feels like two different mediums to express my love of music. I love a lot of different types of music, and I think most people don’t really stick to a [single] genre of music anymore. Everyone loves everything, because it’s accessible. My plan is to be able to express myself in all these different ways and not limit myself to just one thing.”

‘Kulture Klub’ went viral on TikTok earlier this year. How do you interact with the platform?

“I’ve never thought about, ‘How can I market my song?’ while I’m writing. I feel like that’s what I speak about with every artist nowadays though, and it’s a blessing and a curse. It was all done retrospectively though. I was not thinking about any of that when I wrote ‘Kulture Klub.

“TikTok is a new thing, but the idea of marketing yourself has always been there. I think about Camden High Street, and people giving out their mixtapes or USBs every day. How different is that to posting a TikTok every day? The essence is still there. If I were to give any words of comfort or assurance to artists who are struggling with it, it’s that you know what to do, because this is something that artists have always been doing – it’s just got a different name. TikTok can be like what MTV was.”

Does the release of ‘Unreal’ feel like the start of a new chapter for you?

“I’m already on the next thing. It’s already there. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, to actually get the train going. There’s a lot more coming after this, and it won’t be a huge long break. It’s about me stepping into the light and stepping into the limelight. I went into this new project wanting all of that. I want people to know me and see themselves in me and my music”.

I am going to finish with an interview from UCLA Radio from earlier in the month. It is another interesting interview where we get new insights and layers to Lucy Tun. I love how she is influenced by Björk and how an album like Post (1995) resonates. I think that we are going to see this artist take to festival stages next year. There is a lot of love around her. Music that really connects with the listener:

“Chloe Gonzales: Congratulations on your new EP, Unreal ! How does it feel to have it out finally? How long was it in the works for?

Lucy Tun: A really long time. The first song was made almost two or three years ago. So it’s been quite a long and spread out process of getting it together. It feels really good to have that out and in the world, but I needed two weeks after it was out to just vegetate, and ruminate, and marinate, and take it in. Yeah, I feel super happy that it’s out.

Ethan Kung: You also just recently had your release party, and it looked like a lot of fun. How’d that feel?

Lucy: Oh my god, it was amazing. It was my first headline-ish show. I actually didn’t perform live a lot this year because I was focusing on putting music out, and I wanted to save a live performance for when there was a big moment. It felt really good. It was chaotic at times, it was so busy. I have so many funny stories from that night, and it was also the first time that I actually got to meet new and old fans, because I haven’t done a lot of shows. I think the craziest thing that night was when someone told me that they drove two and a half hours to be at the show, and they got stuck in traffic because a car broke down in the middle of the road.

PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Barney and Oscar Ferguson

Ethan: Across your EP’s seven tracks, there’s a really wide range of influences, from the hip-hop beat on a song like “Kulture Klub” to the really chugging 90’s guitar work on “Rabbit Hole”. Is there a particular style on any of these songs that you can see yourself going further into in your future work?

Lucy: I really like that question. A lot of these songs are made at different points in my life. It was a time of personal growth. I was in uni and I was studying a completely different degree that isn’t music; I was actually studying an economics degree. So I was meeting a lot of different people – London is a very multicultural hub of melting cultures – and I was joining a lot of different music scenes as well. Each song was made in a time when I was in a different musical or cultural scene. So for me, this EP is a celebration of all of that growth, but as it’s my first EP, I just wanted to really lay everything out flat and be like, “this is everything that I’ve been exploring”. I wanted to see what stuck and what didn’t stick.

That’s definitely been my entire year, just seeing how people react to songs that I’ve made. I am very self conscious about my art. Do you know that Kanye West documentary [jeen-yuhs] where he’s playing his music to people, and they’re like ‘get out of my office’? I was almost the antithesis of that – I was very self conscious of playing my music. So to have it out in the world and seeing how people have reacted, I think I’ve learnt a lot from it. There’s definitely some parts of each song that I really want to package together for the next project. I want to be a lot more focused, a lot more direct.

Chloe: In another interview we saw that Björk, for example, was a musical influence – we were wondering if you had any inspiration from her regarding your aesthetic.

Lucy: I actually drew a lot of inspiration from Post. I don’t know if you listened to her podcast [Bjork: Sonic Symbolism]

Chloe & Ethan: Yes!

Ethan: It’s so good.

Lucy: Yeah! So I was inspired by her in the beginning because when I finished the songs I had around 50 that were all in the running of being in the EP.

Chloe: 50?? That’s crazy.

Lucy: Yeah and I was like, “how am I gonna whittle this down?” I would go to my local pub and sit there with my hoodie on at 3pm.

Chloe: Ooo so mysterious *laughs*

Lucy: *laughs* All the people at the pub were probably like, “oh my God, she’s here again.”

I was really trying to think about the EP as a body of work together, and in Björk’s podcast she talks about each album and breaks it down – she uses 5 to 20 words in each podcast to describe the feeling of her albums, and I was really inspired to do that with my EP. If I didn’t do that, then I wouldn’t have been as inspired to also make those kinds of visuals [for the EP]. I also think that she has so many questions – like when I think about her I just see her as someone that’s always asking questions about everything, always curious, and always wants to learn and experiment more and not really be boxed in.

Ethan: Something very iconic about Post is that all the songs are really distinct and draw from a lot of inspirations, but they come together to be very cohesive, which is something shared by your EP.

Lucy: I think that Post feels quite industrial as well. And London, I don’t know if you guys have been to London, but it’s an ever changing place. It’s so densely packed and some areas are like a concrete jungle. I think that living in London, being British has also inspired a lot of the sounds, genres, and themes of the EP, which has a slightly industrial sound as well”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

There is one more interview I want to take from. DORK included Lucy Tun in their Hype List for 2024. A songwriter whose larger-than-life music and huge talent caught their eye, they are tipping her for big things next year:

“I feel like each single has its own journey and personality. Even sonically and genre-wise, they sound not too similar. I got inspired by how each song had its own feeling and each character in Marvel has its own personality and story,” she continues expanding on the film analogy. “When a really good story is told, whether you’re a musical artist or an artist or a writer or producer, telling a good story is the main thing, if you’re able to expand that story enough so people can find all these details and take that for themselves then that’s a really good piece of art. The details are important, and world-building is important. That takes time. The main thing for me was coming to terms with the fact that good things take time. There isn’t really a rush to put something out. I’ve taken my time to build as much as I can with the songs I have now.”

The songs themselves feature the kind of wide-eyed ecstasy and endless possibilities of dreaming that characterises her best work, like on previous banger singles like ‘Kulture Klub’. You can hear the genre-mashing sounds of guitar-led rock track ‘Rabbit Hole’ or the disco swoosh of electro turbo banger ‘Diary’. It’s intoxicating stuff.

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

As well as being a visionary artist in her own right, Lucy is also part of the loose collective of artists that form the Loud LDN scene focusing on high energy, D&B-driven pop but with an experimental and refreshingly forward-thinking outlook. “It’s a crazy time,” exclaims Lucy. “It feels amazing to be coming up with people at the same time that I know and I’m friends with. It’s all happening at the same time.” Lucy also stresses how hardworking and self-nurturing these artists are in spirit and work ethic, with people like Caity Baser, Charlotte Plank, Issey Cross, and Venbee truly infiltrating the mainstream. A new generation of artists thriving in a new musical ecosystem. “For some of these artists, people will see them and think they have a huge team behind them, but it’s literally just them. The do-it-yourself energy is so high amongst all of these artists coming up at the same time. When you think about how music was consumed 25 years ago, it’s a completely different market. The entry barriers for making an album, recording it, producing a CD or vinyl, getting it in shops and having people buy it or stream it is completely different now. A track can literally be done in your bedroom on your phone. That’s so crazy. I feel really excited to make art like that as well alongside my friends.”

Going forward, Lucy wants to continue to mesh genres and sounds and warp them to fit her own singular vision. “My idea was if I set the parameters so wide, then can anyone put me in a box?” she asks. “I wanted to put everything out there and get everything off my chest with ‘Unreal’.” So, what’s next, then? “There’s a lot of music, she smiles. “This year was the beginning, and next year is going to be much more honed in. I want to do storytelling on a larger scale and make something more conceptual. That’s something that I’m working towards at the moment. This project is testing out the waters, but the next project after that is going to be much more polished.”)”.

Go and follow Lucy Tun, as she is going to have a very successful 2024. I love the music she is releasing. She is going to inspire other artists coming through that is for sure. Unreal is one of the strongest and most interesting E.P.s of the year. A tremendous thing that everyone needs to hear. In Lucy Tun, we have a wonderful artist…