Playful, eccentric, electronic, and intriguing are the best four words to describe LUMP’s new track from their upcoming album Animal. At the beginning of the song, there’s this almost 1980’s-sounding synthetic beat that you can’t help but just bounce your foot to.
Animal is LUMP’s second album to be released, the product of London singer-songwriter Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay of the band Tunng. With 272,207 monthly listeners on Spotify alone, LUMP has gained popularity all across the globe- from London, to Berlin, to Sydney, to Los Angeles, and more.
Marling says that the project, Animal, was liberating, explaining:
“It became a very different thing about escaping a persona that has become a burden to me in some way. It was like putting on a superhero costume.” (LUMP, Spotify).
This liberation that LUMP claims to discover through their artistry is quite evident in their official newly released music video. The funky ‘80s vibes mixed with a modern-lo fi production leaves you helpless to grooving out as you watch, and it is truly nothing less than colorfully abstract and enchanting.
In my personal opinion, a sincerely solid songwriter is one who writes and makes art purely for themselves, simply because they love to create. They don’t care if it makes sense to other people, because it doesn’t have to. There are no rules in writing or in creating any kind of art for that matter.
And this is the exact attitude LUMP brings in making magic with “Climb Every Wall.”
Lindsay adds on to Marling’s thoughts mentioned previously about their upcoming album, stating that their music is not necessarily driven to make narrative sense, but rather it explores themes of hedonism and the desire to run wild, finding their “inner animal.”
Furthermore, Marling’s lyrics draw heavily on her interest in psychoanalysis. Marling describes her inspiration for writing “Climb Every Mountain” specifically with Partisan Records, saying:
“I’d watched a film called The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology about how ideology is woven into Hollywood cinema, and there was a bit about how in Communist countries they cut out the song ‘Climb Every Mountain’ from The Sound of Music because it’s too much of a personal, individualistic ideology, so that’s where I got the title.”
Lindsay adds:
“I spent hours trying to find a bassline that would work. It was a real headache. Then when I got it, I just loved it and I made my girlfriend come downstairs and dance in the room for about an hour.”
Underneath all of these musical layers, there is some real depth to LUMP’s words. Marling’s message of strength, independence, and taking ownership over personal well-being shines through: “write yourself a map to your healing.”
Listen to any of LUMP’s songs on shuffle, and you’ll find yourself constantly on your toes experiencing a range of fun and lighthearted tunes, mixed in with dark, psychedelic pieces. Contrary to the group’s name, this duo’s style cannot be lumped together and put into one box- each tune has a thrilling, unique story and vibe of its own.
