Initially influenced by No Doubt, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries and Radiohead, the Australian-born, London-based singer/songwriter Lucy Mason first learned the guitar when she was 13, and after finishing school in Australia, the up-and-coming singer songwriter relocated to the UK, where she quickly wound up touring with fellow singer/songwriters Matt Corby and Josh Kumra across the UK. Adding to a steadily growing national profile, Mason is a winner of the UK Songwriting Contest, which naturally established her as one of the UK’s best, new songwriters.
Now, if you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past eight or nine months, you might remember that I’ve written about Mason — and over that same amount of time, the Australian-born, London-based singer/songwriter has been receiving attention internationally across the blogosphere for dramatic yet deeply personally pop.
Her newest and latest single “Lightning Strikes” pairs Mason’s husky jazz-inspired vocals over a sparse and atmospheric production comprised of layers of trembling and ethereal synths, finger-snapped percussion and sudden tempo changes that gives the song a tense, jagged and almost anxious feel as the song builds in intensity. And as Mason explains in press notes, the song is inspired by a deeply personal experience — the sort that had required some time for Mason could write after some time and gaining some perspective. In fact, the song manages to be a bitter and regret-stained confession over a dysfunctional relationship that the narrator spent way too much time in.
