lucky break is where you put all of your dreams. lucky break is a cartoon character, hand-drawn from the pages of a zine. lucky break is a girl with a guitar. lucky break lives inside of a portal, another planet, a different dimension. She can be very very sad and very very joyful. She is an ever-expanding container for all of the different feelings you get when you make art. How it sometimes feels hard and scary and how other times it can be liberating, funny, ecstatic. On her debut for Fire Records, made it! (out 8th May), lucky break builds a whole new world for her character to inhabit.
Nurtured on 90’s alternative indie, lucky break’s music melds the emotionality of Fiona Apple, the wide-eyed wonder of Bedouine and Americana alt-rock of Lucinda Williams. Appealing to enthusiasts of Alvvays, Hole, Phoebe Bridgers and The Breeders, Melissa Auf der Maur has notably been an early supporter of her work.
As a songwriter, lucky break is confessional, direct, and real as hell. Her gifts on the page are matched with an incredibly exciting and versatile voice. She has a voice that can do anything. It contorts itself countless times throughout the record.
From her debut album, lucky break shares two AA-side ‘City Lights’ and ‘Camp Song’ today. ‘City Lights’ nods to Fiona Apple and Lucinda Williams. Her voice is classic with a timeless, dreamy, alt-indie feel that conveys every emotion throughout the song. “It is a love song to San Francisco and the literary culture there. I used to sit in the poetry room at city lights all day long and read for hours. RIP Ferlinghetti.” Coupled with ‘Camp Song’ that fuses alt-country with indie pop, it’s an empowering track on new beginnings. “This song was written on a long walk in the woods in Michigan. I have a habit of singing to trees and sometimes it is creatively fruitful. I was working as a counsellor at the time.”
made it! is a collection of songs that she wrote between the ages of 19 and 23. You know, the years where everything happens. She’s now 24 (a Libra/Scorpio cusp). The songs document the uncertainty and not knowing that comes from being old enough to no longer really be a teenager, but young enough where the future feels immensely vast and scary and exciting, basically all of the time. made it! is also the story of the dissolution of a first big romantic relationship, and the story of a young woman learning to stand up for herself and find her voice in every aspect of her life.
lucky break started writing music as a very young teenager. She grew up in New York and the Bay. Music was always something she was drawn to; it helped her make sense of the world. When she went off to college, she majored in American studies. But she kept being called back to make music. After graduating, she took a job in the music industry as an assistant at a major label. She couldn’t do it. It was eye-opening in all the wrong ways. On the side, as she was working, she started to write her first lucky break EP, Biggest Thing. She left her corporate music industry job after eleven months. “I decided,” she explains, “I was just going to make lucky break work.” So, she did.
Mixed and mastered by Grammy-nominated Jessica Thompson (Margo Guryan, X-Centra, Errol Garner). To create made it!, she worked together with Elliott Woodbridge, her friend and co-producer. The two recorded out of a studio in Burbank, next to the train tracks. They did all of the instrumentation together. lucky break did all of the acoustic guitar. Woodbridge did everything else. At the end of recording, maybe even on the last day, she saw Tony Hawk at a nearby Taco Bell. It was, she says, a good omen for the record. made it! is a record that is as miraculous as seeing Tony Hawk while you’re eating your Crunch Wrap. It is a playful, self-assured, and self-actualized piece of music from a young person who has more than found her voice. “Music gave me a guide and something to move towards,” says lucky break. Consider made it! one big step into that big bright future.
– Sophie Kemp
“A significant new voice in the music world” THE BEAT
‘made it!’ is out May 8th. Available for pre-order in Exclusive Bundle: Limited Edition LP, sticker pack, ‘zine and tote bag, Limited Edition Pink LP, Limited Edition Silver LP & CD.
