In her latest musical endeavor, singer-songwriter Lucy Kitchen bares her soul in the upcoming live EP, ‘The Stabal Sessions.’ Recorded in May ’23 and funded by a grant from the Ivors Academy, this deeply personal project marks Kitchen’s poignant return music following the loss of her husband to cancer last year.
Congratulations on the upcoming release of ‘The Stabal Sessions’ EP! Can you share with us the inspiration behind choosing a live recording, and how the atmosphere there contributed to the essence of the project?
Thank you! I wasn’t planning on putting an EP together originally, it purely came about because I got the grant from the Ivors Academy, which was specifically for the session at Stabal Music. Once I knew I had the grant and I was going to be recording 4 songs, I started thinking about the idea of releasing a live EP if the recordings captured the songs how I wanted. I think there is a lovely immediacy to live recordings that encapsulates the energy of the song and the performers differently to a normal studio recording session and I was really pleased with how all the songs came out and knew I had something I wanted to release.
The EP includes three new songs and one from your previous album, ‘Sun to My Moon.’ How did the selection process for these tracks unfold, and what significance do they hold for you, especially considering the personal nature of this project?
The new songs all just felt right to record. They came out of the past few years looking after my husband while he was sick and sometimes it’s good to put a marker of what you’ve been through and come out of. All of them I knew, as soon as I started going through my options, were the ones I wanted to do. The Boatman I’d had for a little while and had been thinking I would love to do a live recording of it as it’s such a great one to play live. Blue Light I’d just finished writing and Chemo Song-Sleeping Song I’d finished and knew what I wanted arrangement-wise. Sun to My Moon is one that people have asked for a live version of and it just felt like it fitted really well with the band set up and the other songs.
We understand that ‘The Stabal Sessions’ was funded by a grant from the Ivors Academy. Can you tell us about the role of the grant in bringing this project to life and how it impacted your creative process?
Without the grant it’s unlikely that I would have done this project at all, but definitely not in the way it has come about. I wasn’t aware of Stabal Music before the email came out to apply for the grant. For me, I felt that getting the grant gave me a push back into doing my music at a time when otherwise I might not have. Grief does a lot of strange things to your brain and I was feeling pretty scattered but pulling this project together, getting the arrangements together, the band, rehearsing and then the recording day, it felt like it started pulling my brain back together and it got me creating again.
In what ways has the experience of creating this live EP been cathartic for you personally, and how do you see this project fitting into the broader trajectory of your musical journey?
I feel like creating this has been a catalyst in helping me find myself again this year. I have re-discovered the joy of making music and sharing it and now have plans for next year that I may not have had if I hadn’t made this EP. I feel like it is a stepping stone to creating more and playing live more and seeing where that takes me.
Can you take us behind the scenes of the recording session in May ’23? Were there any memorable moments or challenges that stood out during the process of capturing the live essence of your performance?
It was a pretty intense session as you only get two takes for each song at Stabal so you have to nail it! We hadn’t rehearsed with the whole band at the same time so I wasn’t sure how it would all come together…I’d done a rehearsal over zoom with Morgan on guitar and a rehearsal with Frazer (bass) and Kitty (backing vocals) so on the day was the first time we’d all been in the same room playing together. I think there is an added excitement to a video’d session so having all the cameras there and the lights made it all quite buzzy and the Stabal team were all lovely!
As an artist, how do you navigate the emotional terrain of sharing such deeply personal stories through your music? What message or feeling do you hope listeners will take away from ‘The Stabal Sessions’?
I’ve always written from a very personal perspective but like to feel that my songs are universally accessible so to some degree this isn’t that different. However, these songs do feel more even more personal because of where they came from in my life. I am a great believer in making something beautiful out of something hard, looking for the little moments of magic, the jewels in the rubble and making this very much felt like that to me. I am by no means the only person who has lost someone, it is something we will all experience in our lives. I’m hoping that this will connect with people on that level but also as far as showing them there is a way forward when you are in the midst of it, when you can’t see a way out, you can re-find your connection to the things you love and the beauty in life.
Find out more about Lucy Kitchen here.
No Comments