Territory: Worldwide

To encounter Lucy Kruger’s music is to witness a singular journey of constant reflection that is producing an ever-widening arc of creativity. 

Since first embarking on the very specific process of recording music - with an early album that she recorded soon after finishing her Honours degree in Drama in the Eastern Cape town of Grahamstown, South Africa - Kruger has approached her artistry with the care of an archaeologist seeking all the interwoven elements that make up the historical whole.

 Whether the now finite suite of albums with her dream noise duo Medicine Boy (More Knives, 2014; Kinda Like Electricity, 2016; Lower, 2018; Take Me With You When You Disappear, 2020), or her solo work (Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys, 2015, Summer’s Not That Simple, 2017, Sleeping Tapes for Some Girls, 2019), Kruger has engaged in a slow, steady exploration of what it takes to make music that’s universal, that endures, that draws listeners in, even after countless listens.

 “I think that what I am able to offer as an artist is a detailed expression of my experience, for although the situation may feel unique to me, the feelings are universal,” says Kruger. “Giving them a sound and shape validates and creates space for those feelings, allowing listeners to feel seen, even at a distance. Even in the isolation of a bedroom. Especially in the isolation of a bedroom.”

Kruger grew up in Johannesburg where she began writing songs as a 16-year-old and laid the foundation for her fervent live performances while studying music and drama at Rhodes University. She then moved to Cape Town where she spent several years and first met long term musical collaborator, André Leo, with whom she would form Medicine Boy. It was with Medicine Boy that she first played in Berlin during a European tour in 2015. The band would go on to do a number of European tours, playing alongside the likes of Michael Rother (NEU!), Dead Meadow, The Warlocks, Tess Parks and Night Beats, before making a permanent move to Berlin. The duo were signed to UK label, Fuzz Club in 2018 for their second  album, Lower and to Berlin-based booking agency, El Borracho Bookings.

It was to propel the music forward that Kruger eventually relocated to the Berlin but Kruger knows that part of the move was also to explore - unfettered - a new space, both physically and metaphysically.

Just before leaving for Berlin, Kruger recorded Sleeping Tapes for Some Girls – a set of lullabies for listeners who might be suffering from the quiet restlessness that the 10-songs document through the combination of Kruger’s hushed  vocals and the shifting, swaying instruments. The album was released by Unique Records and Schubert Music, who both came into contact with Kruger’s music while watching her open for Laura Carbone, whom she toured with as a support act during her national tour in 2019.

In April 2022, she released her fourth record, ‘Teen Tapes’ (for performing your own stunts)’ which serves as the third and final in the Berlin trilogy, through Unique Records under the umbrella of Schubert Publishing and were funded with the assistance of Initiative Musik. 

The tape trilogy (Sleeping Tapes, Transit Tapes, Teen Tapes) mines and documents deeply personal themes – including the desire to no longer have to keep things neat and contained, and a seeking of space and outward movement. “The songs begin in the bedroom but with an eye on the window and a hand on the door. There is a restlessness. A kind of building up of courage and the acknowledgement of a fear I had developed around making too much noise or causing too much of a scene.”

There are also more themes to explore including the centrality of women in Kruger’s lyrics, as listeners, and in her own life. “There is more pressure on a woman to figure herself out in private and then step out with a formed identity. It’s suffocating,” she says. “How are we supposed to discover who we are if we are not allowed to make a mess? To leak, spill, sweat, spit, shriek. Sometimes playing involves getting scratched or wounded. Laughing. Weeping. It also involves glorious thrill and the chance to surrender. I’m looking for that. The Tape Trilogy is a gentle and sometimes not so gentle reminder/push/pull to take off my winter coat and run naked like a wild thing towards the water.”

Kruger spent most of last year learning how to record herself and setting poetry to music, as well as working on a remotely collaborative and experimental EP that documents themes of isolation and the idea of home, as a body, the love of another, a physical space, the vast terrain of the internet. The EP features artists Frank Rosaly, Liú Mottes, Rosa Rondorf, Alexander Duvekot, Calvin Siderfin, Jean-Louise Parker, André Leo, Ruan Vos, Wongiwe Mayekiso and Guy Buttery. This experimentation was made possible through a scholarship awarded by Musik Fonds. 

She also started a Patreon account last year where she shares a new song every Sunday along with a piece of writing that unpacks or continues the conversation that stem from the lyrics or the process.  A loyal and growing community of patreons not only allows for a greater sense of financial stability, but has meant that she has been relentlessly pursuing and honing her craft. 

Lucy Kruger uses her music as a bridge on her deeply contemplative, near forensic journey into what shapes an interior and exterior life.

Tour dates.