Across her work, Kelsey Lu’s music tends to operate as part of a wider emotional and visual language, where atmosphere carries as much meaning as lyrics themselves. New single ‘Comfort’, released today ahead of forthcoming album So Help Me God, continues that instinct with quiet precision.
The track begins almost weightlessly, Lu’s voice suspended above a sparse arrangement that recalls the hushed intimacy of earlier singles ‘Running To Pain’ and ‘Portrait Of A Lady on Fire’. For much of its opening stretch, ‘Comfort’ resists dramatic release entirely. Then, slowly, the song shifts shape. Layers begin gathering beneath the vocal, the production widens and the track moves toward something denser and more emotionally exposed without abandoning its restraint.
That balance appears central to So Help Me God, Lu’s first album since 2019’s Blood. Co-produced alongside Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman, the ten-track record circles devotion, grief, desire and transformation without separating those ideas neatly from one another. Instead, they seem to bleed together constantly.
The project also extends well beyond the album itself. A companion short film directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Savanah Leaf and starring French actor Garance Marillier has been developed alongside the record, positioning So Help Me God less as a standalone release than part of a broader artistic world. That multidisciplinary approach has increasingly become central to Lu’s work, where performance, installation and visual storytelling exist alongside the music rather than simply decorating it.
Earlier this month, Lu introduced material from the album during an eight-show residency at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York and its Los Angeles counterpart, before unveiling PENUMBRA in Venice, an immersive performance piece blurring the lines between concert, ritual and installation art.
Stream ‘Comfort’ HERE.
