Written by: Dave Cantrell
OK, well, this is a good sign. As soon as the UK-based Lande Hekt opened her mouth on, it must be said, the already subtly pop-addictive opening track “Kitchen II” on fourth full-length Lucky Now one of ‘those’ chills rose up the back of my neck in that light burst of quiet astonishment we all know so well. While not altogether that rare of an introductory response – this is, as it happens, your correspondent’s first encounter with this artist – it’s rare enough and tends to serve as a seldom-errant indicator of the what’s-to-come and in this case, well, let’s just say it may well be the case I turn to hereafter when in need of a quick example of exactly that ever sought after skin-prickling phenomenon which, as you’ve no doubt guessed, isn’t limited to that first track but rather proves to be the rule for this artist not the exception.
From the next-up gentle-to-bursting title track wherein Lekt, against a chiming bright blast of easy post-Byrdsian charm – a constant presence throughout – explores that ever-curious process we (or most of us?) go through as we try to figure out the why and the where our lives pivoted in the way that they did and does so with a lyrical adeptness that throughout seems so reflexively available to her, though it’s especially effective here as she deftly parses the elements of a foundering relationship in a way as allusive as it is direct (sample back-to-back stanzas: For all the time you were on the road, you have let me down / If you want to come, want to come home, you’d be lucky now//an appointment at an embassy, a promise of sobriety, a single night when you didn’t go to sleep / I was a tiny fish, I don’t know how I crossed that sea.) to “Coming Home” that ends this jewel in a glinting rush of refracting elements that manages to coasesce in to a singular, thrumming head rush of a coda that will take days to vacate this listener’s head, this album, abetted by the sure simpatico touch of producer Matthew Simms, is just a full-out gem and oh that I was exaggerating.
Whether it’s the gilded jounce of “Rabbits” that in three quick minutes speaks with a delicate certainty to a lifetime of finding wonder inside the doubt (I can see the rabbits running in the field below/I can see the time but I don’t know where it goes); “Middle of the Night”‘s confessional finesse as Lekt unspools the somewhat tangled threads of her own particular complex past – all of ours are, after all – and weaves them back in to what is now a sober, reclaimed life that nonetheless (no surprise) still presents as an ongoing challenge; the persistent charge and effervescence that would propel “My Imaginary Friend” to the top of the pop charts if we lived in even an inkling of an ideal world but honestly nothing better underscores what appears to be this artist’s core creative template than the song that, appropriately, sits dead center in the middle of the tracklist. Called – also quite appropriately – “Circular,” it’s difficult to even imagine a more purely distilled example of said template, not least due the political existentialism pulsing at its center and emanating outward, its final lines (they change the law like it’s a game and we’re the pawns getting played // we won’t be able to strike, we won’t be able to gather. We won’t be able to do anything about it when it matters) bringing to an unambiguous focus the bond between art and politics, between the pretense of living free and the actual version of such we’re forced to accept.
All of which is to say that that shiver of grace (no other word for it, really) mentioned at the outset up there would be pretty much guaranteed no matter which of these eleven tracks one chose as their introduction to this assuredly stunning album. Go ahead, hit ‘shuffle,’ we dare you. You’ll be suitably gobsmacked no matter. Meanwhile, I’m going to go see about ordering Lucky Now on vinyl. And once it arrives? Well, lucky me. [you can order your own copy in whatever format here or here or here]
