Deeply personal reflections on birth, parenthood and life itself. Singer-songwriter Luke De Sciscio channels Cohen, Drake, Simon and others on his 17th album, Theo.
Release Date: 27th September 2024
Label: Folk Boy Records
Formats: Vinyl / Digital
He may be new to the pages of At The Barrier, but Bath-based singer-songwriter Luke De Sciscio is something of an old hand. He’s been around for quite some time – since at least 2016 by our reckoning – and he’s one of the most prolific artists you’re likely to come across anywhere. Theo is Luke’s seventeenth full-length album and follows hot on the heels of his previous offering, Papa, released just six months ago.
DEEPLY PERSONAL
Theo is a project that is deeply personal to Luke. The eleven songs that comprise the album were written and recorded – in his bedroom studio – during the first six weeks of his new daughter’s life. Several of the songs involve intimate, and sometimes uncomfortable, reflections and recollections of that period. These include the emotional experience of the birth itself, the demands and pleasures of accommodating a new baby and the emergence of a new family dynamic.
Luke describes the album as: “A raw and unprecedented insight into the early throes of parenthood and an ode to life itself.” Theo is packed with emotions that will resonate with anyone who has experienced parenthood. If you have, these songs will take you back through the joys and uncertainties you felt when these things happened to you.
HOME MADE CHARM
There’s a home-made charm to Theo, but Luke’s music certainly doesn’t lack accomplishment and sophistication. He’s a dab hand on that guitar of his and his fluent fingerpicking reminds me very much of Nick Drake. Indeed, it may be an obvious observation to make, but Luke seems to channel the lyrical and musical spirit of Nick Drake in several of the songs on Theo, notably on opening track Two Headed Shadow and on the mesmerizing Only a Woman Knows. Both songs deal with subject of welcoming a new baby to the world and adjusting one’s established habits and values to include the new family addition.
THE DRAKE FACTOR
Pervasive though the inspiration of Nick Drake may be, his is not the only influence that’s detectable amongst the Theo songbook. Both Milk And Blood and closing track For The Poems appear to channel Leonard Cohen both in their deep, poetic lyrics which, in the case of Milk and Blood concern the unbreakable bond between mother and child after the trauma of birth has been confronted and survived. In the case of For the Poems, involving a relentless outpouring of sentiment and observation, and in Luke’s rich vocal delivery.
And that’s not the end of the comparisons; the epic Towers Span People sounds uncannily like a Paul Simon song (there’s no plagiarism – I’m just describing the sense I got) and Luke, in delivering what is maybe his best vocal performance of the album, seems to bring Art Garfunkel right into the room.
NO DETAILS SPARED
There isn’t a single song in which the raw emotion or the graphic detail is spared, whether Luke is pondering the identity and meaning of his baby in Daughter, confronting his own proclivity to alcoholic excess in Two Headed Shadow and Spinning or, most unsettlingly, reliving the visual realities of his daughter’s cesarean birth in the harrowing yet – ultimately – celebratory Layers.
Perhaps my own pick of the bunch is the hymnal, operatic Deeply Religious, 18 and Pretty. A song in which Luke seems to combine the exhilaration of carrying his new baby around for the first time with a growing sense of dread, fired by his own lived experiences, of what the future may hold for his child.
INTRIGUING
I haven’t yet mentioned Luke’s vocal talent, and I really should. It’s a highpoint of just about every song on Theo. Luke’s voice is incredibly versatile. His range is impressively wide and his tone captures the sincerity of Robin Pecknold and the mellow richness of Roy Orbison, often within the same song.
Theo is an intriguing album; sometimes comfortable, sometimes unsettling. It will stir memories of experiences that were happy but not without lasting trauma. Like many of the best albums, it’s not always easy to listen to, but, persevere and you’ll be rewarded.
Watch Luke De Sciscio perform Spinning – a track from the album – here:
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