“Seven years of grieving” is how Kelsey Lu sums up the period since her debut LP, Blood. Among these moments of personal reckoning, the North Carolina-born, Brooklyn-based cellist, singer, composer and performance artist has kept moving forward creatively, scoring acclaimed A24 drama Earth Mama and the Netflix documentary Daughters, collaborating with Jamie xx and Yves Tumor, and starring alongside Debbie Harry in Gucci’s 2025 Cruise campaign, shot by Nan Goldin. Now Lu is back with their second full-length project, So Help Me God, which arrives accompanied by a film co-directed with BAFTA-winner Savanah Leaf and starring Garance Marillier (Titane, Raw).
Produced in collaboration with Yves Rothman and Jack Antonoff, and featuring contributions from Kim Gordon, Kamasi Washington and Sampha, these ten tracks find Lu charting their spiritual journey in suitably cinematic style. From the lush, string-drenched atmospherics of Portrait of a Lady On Fire and Running To Pain’s synth-pop, by way of Only The Lonely’s breakbeat melancholia, So Help Me God is a complete world in its own right, ready to be discovered and devoured.
Here, Lu talks us through this ambitious second chapter and shares their thoughts on geology, vengeance and mentors.
1. Hi Lu, where are you?
I‘m back in New York. I was just in Jamaica for a much needed break.
2. Seven years between albums is quite a stretch. Was there any trepidation about returning to the public eye?
I didn’t think about it too much, but now that I’m entering into the public sphere of releasing an album – rather than making film scores or collaborating with an artist that’s doing an installation or performing at a museum like MoMA – I’m reminded there’s a difference. My partner has been researching David Hammons recently, and he’s an artist that I really admire and that has only done a few interviews in the span of his career. He described interviewing as feeling like being interrogated and I think when releasing music in this way the level of interest and inquiry gets heightened. So it’s a readjustment.
3. The album title, So Help Me God, evokes an image of someone at breaking point. Why did that resonate?
There’s been many points where I felt at the breaking point of my faith, be that my faith in my songwriting or my music making, my art making, my love making, my spirituality, my love for myself … My relationship with music has been one of healing and pain, and so [the title is] a convergence and a balance of the two: me accepting that some things are going to be uncomfortable while also having the faith to keep going.
4. There’s such a huge variety of styles on the album. Were you working with any influences?
I was thinking about great pop records. Prince and the spectrum of sounds that he made is just massive. But then for periods of time I would only listen to Laraaji because that’s what was soothing to me. In other moments, I would go back to my favourite composers growing up – like Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff and Beethoven – all these really dramatic, very lush, turn of the century composers helped me tap into a deeper set of emotions at a very young age. Or I would return to the things I would listen to in the car with my mom or sister, like Three 6 Mafia or KD Lang or Sade.
5. Your music has a cinematic quality. Do you have a favourite director?
No. But I remember I cheated on a boyfriend at one point and got so sick after we broke up that I couldn’t leave the bed for days, and I just went on a full binge of all of Tarkovsky’s films, which is so masochistic. [Laughs]. Antonioni has always been a favourite. And my song Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a direct reference to the Céline Sciamma film.
6. What’s the optimum environment in which to experience So Help Me God?
Honestly, everywhere. In a car, on the train, on a bus, in bed. At the club if you want, though it depends what club you’re going to, I guess.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? “Chaka Khan told me to take it all” – Kelsey Lu
7. What was the worst job you ever had?
I worked at this barbecue restaurant in North Carolina, and my manager was racist as fuck and really jealous of me and my friendship with this guy, Will, I was at North Carolina School of the Arts with. She would dock my pay and just generally try to ruin my life.
8. What’s the most satisfying act of vengeance you’ve enacted?
It was with that same manager. One night she showed up to my friend’s house party and however many Jaeger shots later, I ended up keying the hood of her car, with ‘racist cunt bitch’. That was pretty up there.
9. What makes you angry?
Genocide.
10. What is your most controversial opinion?
That men should always put the toilet seat down.
11. What one piece of music do you wish that you had written?
Damn. Oh! Robyn, Dancing On My Own.
12. How would you define your personal style?
Ever evolving.
13. Do you have a favourite designer?
I hate playing favourites.
What is the biggest misconception that people might have about you? “That I’m really serious?” – Kelsey Lu
14. From Nan Goldin and Meredith Monk to Debbie Harry, you’ve collaborated with so many incredible women. Do you have a mentor?
Someone I’ve got to know over the past couple of years is Simone Leigh, the sculptor. We met at a Jil Sander show a few years ago and then somehow found out that we were neighbours, so we started going to dinner together and she’s turned into a bit of a mentor. It’s really cool to work with all of these really powerful women with this don’t-give-a-fuck attitude.
15. Who is your dream collaboration?
Missy Elliott.
16. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Chaka Khan told me to take it all.
17. If you weren’t an artist, what else would you be doing?
I’d be a geologist. My whole life I’ve collected rocks. I’ve got hundreds of them.
18. What is the biggest misconception that people might have about you?
That I’m really serious?
19. What would you like your legacy to be?
I’d like my legacy to be one of joy, hope, fun, and honesty.
20. Finally, can you tell us a secret?
Like young siblings do, me and my sister used to take baths together, and one time I pooped in the bath and I didn’t tell her. I just watched her reach for it like it was a toy ...
So Help Me God is out on 12 June.
