Caturday With Luvcat

• Beanie Stolper:‘Matador’ was your first introduction to the world, a fever dream of romance, danger, and perfume-soaked chaos. A year later, you’re collaborating with punk icon John Cooper Clarke, your mythology has spilled from the Seine to Glastonbury’s The Lonely Hearts Club stage, and you’ve built a cult around silk knickers and heartbreak. How do you see ‘Matador’ now?
  Luvcat: That’s a great question, I think ‘Matador’ will always be at the core of everything. It is the song which hooked my first audience. When I first wrote it, I drove home and looped it maybe 17 times. It just had this hypnotic presence. I am still proud of the lyrics and metaphor in that song, it was true catharsis to write and truly set me free from the torture behind it.

  BS: Clarke’s writing captures the grime and poetry of Britain. Did working with him make you reflect differently on Britishness in your music, especially when blending noir, cabaret, and punk?
  L: Well, John and I are the best kind of British… NORTHERN! I think northerners best capture both the grit and wit of living in this country. John is endlessly inspiring to me. I love everything about his writing, it’s dark and romantic and wry, and delivered in his accent.

  BS: The original ‘He’s My Man’ was already cinematic and theatrical. How did you find balance between your noir-glamour aesthetic and Clarke’s sharp honesty in the re-recording?
  L: John had been reading the medical encyclopedia. He looked up the symptoms of arsenic poisoning, what it felt like, tasted like etc etc. I love how he gave a starker, bleaker side to the story and let me weave in between with my spooky, whimsical wailings.

BS: Vicious Delicious’ layers characters, hidden voices, and recurring motifs. Are those threads intentional or do they reveal themselves later?
L: Mostly the recurring motifs and hidden voices were planted intentionally. That’s one place where there are no accidents, everything is there for a reason. There’s a silver thread spun through the 13 tracks. The record begins with the wind-up sounds of a doll on a music box, and slowly descends into madness until the final band playout. I myself am a close listener, so I love when an artist leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. There will always be secrets in there that only I know about too. I think that’s important, to infuse the record with all the magic that inspired it.

BS: You often write about lovers, rogues, and flashing entanglements, yet you’ve said the album is ultimately about yourself. How do you distinguish between channeling others and confronting your own world?
L: Every character that I’ve encountered has always only led me back to myself. I soak them up and steal a little piece of them that stays with me forever.

BS: Your lyrics flirt with danger and innocence. How conscious is that tension when you write, and what does it reveal about your relationship to desire and control?
L: The only thing I’m conscious of when I’m writing is just telling the story in the most compelling way I can. There is no love without hate, sex without power and I think that’s fun to explore!

BS: Your album is full of characters, fleeting romances, and moments of desire and danger. When writing, how do you decide what becomes immortalised in song and what stays lived experience?
L: I mostly try to include all the details of the story. I always have an abundance of words. Sometimes verses have to be cut, but I like the idea of then sharing those at a concert in the future.

BS: You record in what you’ve called ‘stolen moments’, embracing imperfection. How does that urgency shape the way your songs sound?
L: I think often my favourite recordings are the scratchy demos that were captured in the heat of the moment. That initial naivety and uncertainty of the song causes me to think on my feet. It’s more exciting that way. I find the more I try to perfect a song, the more it loses its spirit.

BS: Your arrangements, from saxophones to brass, feel like theatre, scored for chaos. How do you decide when something serves the story and when it’s just beautiful disorder?
L: It’s usually if we have someone that plays a certain instrument hanging around on the day, then we’ll try it! There’s never a clear plan, it’s just about following a feeling and trusting the wind to take us the right way. My lovely ex boyfriend’s dad is the sax player in Roxy Music, so we were very fortunate to have him come in and play some menacing saxophone in ‘Bad Books’.

BS: ‘Blushing’ captures “the circus inside her”, while ‘Vicious Delicious’ is a tribute to dangerous, intoxicating love. Do you ever find the more personal, narrative lyrics and songs hard to listen back to or to perform?
L: No, quite the opposite! The harder the lyrics hit me in the guts, the more I love to sing them live! I’m always led by words and then the music follows.

BS: You’ve built a cult around yourself in just a year, a mythology of lipstick, chaos, and love. If your Luvkittens ran your life for 24 hours, what would they do first?
L: Maybe kiss a few of my old lovers. They’re very handsome fellas, I wouldn’t blame the kittens!

BS: Now, after ‘Vicious Delicious’ what uncharted territory, musically or personally, excites you most?
L: The second album! ! It’s all I can think about! I think I wrote the opening song yesterday. It sounds like it should be on an assassin’s sex playlist!