New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Brighton-based artist and musician LUCY FELIZ is pleased to announce that she has signed to Scottish independent label OK Pal Records for her second album, Last of The Sun. The record is set for release on 28th August 2020.
To celebrate the news, Feliz has revealed an official video for the album's lead single, 'Magic Hour', which is out now on all good digital service providers.
The single is featured as part of the BBC Introducing Isolation Mixes this week on the 'Working From Home Mix', which is out now on BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08f9lc5
As a first taste, 'Magic Hour' perfectly paves the way into this immersive collection of songs. Saturated with a dream-like quality, it allows the listener to lose them self in the ethereal, psychedelic guitars and ghostly ivories. However, the density of the sonic landscape does not compromise the integrity of the song-writing. The strength of Feliz's imagination, and her knack for writing a great pop song is evident. The lyrics carry a sense of optimism and hope, whilst hinting at a deeper irony. At the end of the song, we are left with nonchalant "happy ever afters" swirling about like a haunted mantra.
For Feliz, the track is a mystic affair that conjures skipping school on the first warm day of summer to practice astral projection in a teenage bedroom. Aching to believe in something more magical than Catholic school and a conservative upbringing has to offer. Determined to transcend the day-to-day by any means necessary.
"When I was a child, the dressing up box was my favourite thing in the world," Feliz explains of her penchant for the otherworldly. "I love shape-shifting. One time at primary school I brought an orange wig and glasses to class and announced my name was Charlie. My disguise failed pretty quickly...the Milkybar Kid gold rims didn't pass for prescriptions in the 90s. I also walked around Gatwick zoo with an empty loo roll in my lycra shorts so I could try out being a boy. My parents received some looks that day."
Feliz's debut album, Ancestry, was released on Union
Music in 2017. Recorded in a church founded by her Welsh ancestors, the record was a raw exploration of roots and belonging. After receiving favourable press coverage from the likes of The Line of Best Fit, Folk Radio, Folk &
Honey and national plays on BBC
Radio Wales, she went on to open for artists such as
Laura Veirs, Anna Burch and Tiny Ruins on their UK tours. On Last of the Sun, we see Feliz shift her attention away from the realism of personal histories to a more fluid terrain. She transports the listener into dreamscapes and mythological plains, while retaining the lyrical intimacy that defined her first record.
This new album was recorded in New Zealand's Sitting Room with award-winning producer Ben Edwards (Marlon Williams, Delaney Davidson, Julia Jacklin, Nadia Reid, Aldous Harding). Feliz could not have chosen a further away location from her Brighton music scene if she tried, but for Feliz, that was the intention. After three years of therapy and existential paralysis, she had hit something of a quarter life crisis. This drove her to put her life in the UK on hold and make a fresh start, away from constraints of familiarity, geography, social structures & family dynamics. In the midst of this vibrant landscape, so totally unlike the UK, Feliz was able to fully absorb herself in the recording process. Listening to the record, this mood undeniably filters through. We get a sense that Feliz is looking back at her life at home from paradise.
Further new material will be revealed over the coming months.
Last of The Sun is released 28th August 2020 via OK Pal Records
Last Of The Sun tracklist:
1. Cowgirl
2. Magic Hour
3. Paradise
4. Last Laugh
5. Mars
6. Werewolf
7. Angie
8. Wild Orchids
9. Silhouette
10. Strange Allure
Lucy Feliz online:
https://www.facebook.com/lucyfelizmusic/
https://lucyfeliz.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lucyfelizmusic/
