The world of Kelsey Lu’s sophomore album, So Help Me God, is rich—not only sonically, threaded as it is with their characteristic lyricism (from the opening track, “Reaper”: “Can’t take a sin from a sinning man / It’s not my burden, it’s in your hands / You are the reaper left to decide / What you want, baby? I’m not your guide”), but also visually, using film and visual art to build out its storytelling.
To mark its release, the 35-year old spoke to Vogue this week about collaborating with Kim Gordon, “Liza Minnelli wigs,” and taking musical inspiration from Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
I have to ask you about “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which I’m obsessed with. What’s your relationship with the 2019 film?
It came out right before the pandemic, and I watched it when I was locked down on an island. I was living with my girlfriend at the time, and it was one of those new pandemic relationships. I was starting to try to write the new album, but a lot of things were feeling really ruptured and incomplete, and even though I was in this relationship, there were other things that I was longing for and that I felt torn about.
When I watched that movie, I was so moved by it emotionally that it inspired me to make something with the sense of longing that it gave me. I usually kind of make things that are already pretty cinematic, and it just inspired me. I watched it by myself the first time, and then I was like, “You gotta watch this with me,” and then I watched it again. I watched it three times in a row. [Laughs.]
What has performing in LA and New York been like for you recently?
It’s been pretty surreal. I mean, playing at the Blue Note was pretty iconic. It was a very bucket-list kind of vibe, and it was also really fun because I had a different look for each show, and there were two shows a night.
What were the looks?
There were a lot of gowns; Diotima gowns, sparkles, a Liza Minnelli wig. It was also just fun connecting with fans again, because when you’re performing songs that nobody’s ever heard before, everyone is so present and, like, so eager and ready for the album to come out. The performance that I did in Venice, for example, was an entire installation that took over the entire top floor of the Palazzo Diedo and completely filled it with soil, and underneath the soil there were these charcoal paper works that were being activated as we were performing. We had three different musicians and a dancer, Josh Johnson, and we were all moving in and amongst one another in the space, and the audience was also actively participating in the performance as well. That one was like a dream. I wish I could do that for every show…
Probably hard to arrange, huh?
I think my new rider for each show is going to be a bag of dirt. [Laughs.]
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
