Natalie Lucie has been featuring on our pages since 2022 and now she’s back with her debut album, The Light.
By Graeme Smith
The Light is an album that’s taken over three years to create and reflects on themes of healing, cyclebreaking, matrescence (the transformation that comes with motherhood) and self-love.
“The album is about healing, transformation, and growth,” says Gloucestershire-based Lucie. “Many of the songs reference light in different ways — both as a metaphor and a guiding force — so The Light felt like the most honest title.”
The Light is a collection of soulful tracks that range from the stripped-back and intimate to the powerful and rousing. Lucie’s vocals are, of course, the star of the show, beautifully expressive as they deliver confessional lyrics about motherhood and spreading herself too thin. Girl, stop pretending proves an early highlight, as does the poignant, piano-led Tides.
The album contains two previously released singles. Glue strips things back to let its powerful lyrics shine and Save The World gives us a moody moment rich with lyrical imagery and lush electronica. An anthemic chorus will stick with you.
As the album reaches it conclusion, How To Live A Life swaps smouldering acoustic verses for life-affirming choruses. Little piece of the universe feels suitably cosmic during a intimate and vulnerable moment. Reconcile ends things with some dreamy jazz and self-reflection.
To bring the album to life, Lucie taught herself to produce during lockdown. She also teamed up with Hattie Murdoch (HATi), who co-produced several tracks and provided all the mixing and mastering on the album.
“What kept me going through this process is the belief that the stories of women over a certain age still matter, that the stories of mothers matter, that women, and particularly mothers, are allowed to create works of art simply because they feel called to,” Lucie says. “It’s hard in to feel worthy to create sometimes without a huge following or big streaming numbers, but art is art, and if you’re called to create then please create. I was reading a lot of books in lockdown around women and creativity, motherhood and healing and these themes all influenced what I was writing at the time. I really hope that I’ve created a collection of songs that will help others feel seen and held, because that’s what music has always done for me.”
The Light is out now, available to buy as a digital album on Bandcamp. You can give it a listen below.