Bathgate singer Luke La Volpe released his anthemic new single Freakwave on Friday 6th May, his first new music of the year and the opening track from Lifelines, an EP of 5 emotive new songs tackling life and love in all its guises and complexity.
Amid a pulsing, hypnotic wash of guitar and piano, Freakwave laments the tide of bad news and negativity we’ve all had to deal with over the past couple of tumultuous years, building to its cathartic chorus of ‘Your love and my love is all we need.’ Luke introduced Freakwave to his live set as he returned to gigging last year and it’s become a firm favourite with fans, alongside established singalongs like lockdown anthem Terribly Beautiful and Scottish Number 1 single Dead Man’s Blues.
Freakwave is the first fruit of Luke’s collaboration with musical legend Iain Archer, who has shared his songwriting talents with the likes of Snow Patrol (Run), James Bay (Hold Back The River) and Jake Bugg (Lightning Bolt) amongst many others. Their friendship flourished over several visits to Iain’s home studio in Brighton, where the pair found a rich vein of inspiration, with Iain producing the EP and co-writing four of the five tracks, with Luke’s unmistakable, timeless vocals front and centre.
Further EP tracks Sit At My Table, the ultimate ‘make up’ ballad, and the bittersweet love song Lifeline will follow on June 3rd and July 1st respectively, with the brooding Monster and EP closer Live It completing the collection with the full EP on July 15th.
Co-written with Jordan Riley (Tom Grennan, Mabel, Ella Henderson, Jonas Blue), Live It is a tribute to Luke’s grandfather who passed away last year. Papa D, as he was fondly known, spotted Luke’s musical talents at an early age and encouraged him throughout his life, with the pair bonding over their mutual love of classic singers like Sinatra, Johnny Cash and Elvis even through the heart-breaking challenges of Alzheimers. The song is peppered with Papa D’s words of wisdom and the track ends with a poignant snippet of the man himself recalling his own experiences as a musician in the army.
“The EP’s called Lifelines because each song represents a time when I’ve felt lost and had to pull myself out of a difficult situation,” says Luke. “Working with Iain was an incredible experience, totally different to anything I’d ever done before and we really seemed to hit it off and create some tremendous pieces of music. Having in-depth conversations about moments in my life then turning them into songs was a really therapeutic exercise for me and I’m proud of it as a body of work. The final song Live It is a dedication to my late Papa D and I’m particularly proud to have immortalised some of the wisdom that he instilled in me into the lyrics of the song. He was my inspiration to do this in the first place and hopefully he can inspire more people and live on through my music.”
After closing 2021 with his biggest headline show to date at a sold-out St Luke’s in Glasgow, Luke appears at various festivals this summer, including his long-awaited TRNSMT debut, after he had to pull out last year due to COVID.
Live shows:
Sat 28 May Perth, Scotland Trending Festival
Wed 29 June Lytham Festival, supporting Lewis Capaldi
Fri 08 July Glasgow, TRNSMT Festival, King Tut’s Stage
Sat 30 July Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival
Sunday 31 July Edinburgh, Over The Bridge Festival
Sat 13 August Linlithgow, Party At The Palace Festival
