Belfast native Lucy Gaffney shares nostalgia-evoking indie-pop gem ‘Big Love’; Single & video out now
February 9, 2024 BY Emma Orland
After sharing the poignant ‘Locked Up Never Fade’ late last year, musician and singer-songwriter Lucy Gaffney is back with a brand-new track titled ‘Big Love’. It’s a nostalgia-evoking song that luminously marks Lucy’s arrival – the second single taken from her upcoming third EP, it’s a pure-cut indie-pop gem every bit as Technicolour as her journey along the way.
‘Big Love’ was written after Lucy returned to her native Belfast after living in Liverpool for a few years, it’s a song firmly grounded in a stillness and sanctuary that rarely surfaces away from home. For the Belfast artist, it was time spent navigating the sprawling hills that overlook her family home that helped to play muse…
“‘Big Love’ came from going on long walks up the Divis and Black Mountain in Belfast and feeling content being back home in Ireland after living away,” she reveals. “I was happy to lean into a sense of familiarity and grounding that always coincides with being back in nature and the place you grew up in. I was sitting by the fire looking out of the window and Big Love was written in a moment of pure flow. The story of Big Love is somewhat ambiguous, it developed into romantic idioms that don’t specifically capture people but more so moments and feelings I’ve experienced throughout life that ultimately come down to a sense of belonging and self-worth.”
‘Big Love’ was produced by her brother (and fellow musician) Thom Southern in Liverpool’s ‘Parr Street Studios’ and then taken back home to be finished in Lucy and Thom’s mum’s garage during one of the lockdowns.
Listen to ‘Big Love’ here and watch the accompanying video below:
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About Lucy Gaffney:
Lucy Gaffney is no newcomer to the power of patience and pure intention. The Belfast native began releasing solo material in 2020, with two well-received lo-fi offerings, ‘Can’t Escape’ and ‘Send Me Away’, both recorded by The Coral frontman James Skelly and immediately caught the attention of Ireland’s most influential publication Hot Press Magazine.
Fast forward to 2023 and her latest EP Daydream In Tokyo luminously marks her arrival. To record the EP, Gaffney flew to the Isle Of Lewis in The Hebrides, Scotland to record a bunch of her new tracks at Black Bay Studios with her brother Thom Southern and London-based producer Duncan Mills (Bleach Lab, Jake Bugg, Geowulf). “We had a lot of fun working on this track [Daydream In Tokyo] in particular and I think we captured a lot of that energy from the studio in the final mix,” she says. “I usually tend to construct songs with three tracks, meshing melodies and hooks together. Like on this song, I can usually just hear it in my head. I love deconstructing a track and blending things together, almost like a DJ would.”
Alongside Duncan Mills and Thom Southern, Gaffney tapped into the simple yet powerful majesty of the moment when she holed up in the secluded Black Bay recording studio on the Isle of Lewis last year. For two weeks, the trio worked around the clock to realise her vision for widescreen indie-pop that makes space for big hooks every bit as sonic points of reference such as Pixies, Pavement, and more.
Lucy Gaffney is currently working on her next EP, to be released in 2024.
