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Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter saint luke, the artist name of multi-instrumentalist Luke Brady, blew this writer away this past September with an intimate Friday night show at The Greenhouse at Los Despressos in Bed Stuy. He and his band, an ensemble of six including a saxophonist and a violinist, ran through his upcoming record, leave new york to me, with copious amounts of musical aptitude and spatial cognition. 

“living room,” out now, is the second offering from the record following primary single “The Planner.” From an instrumental perspective, elements of traditional country and indie folk permeate its sonic motion, and, as surely a standard pattern by luke, the dynamic markings of the tune are able to expand. Additional tunes throughout the record display a fair amount of luke’s pliable and remarkably wide vocal range, though these first tunes cater towards his glossy, tenderized lower to mid-range. In this region, he is able to sustain a contemporary nasal tone to shape his phonetics to his liking. He does this frequently within the chorus of “living room,” utilizing several tasteful, though slightly unpolished, runs to accentuate the harried nature of the lyrical themes: 

I been staring at the ceiling all damn night/ And I been carrying this feeling from Rome to Saratoga/ And all your actions are revealing, the way you really saw me/ Only love when it’s convenient/ You got just what you wanted/ My living room’s haunted.

luke briefly explained the premise of the tune during the Greenhouse show, stating it was written at his former apartment, which he shared with guitarist Owen Wernow. “I wrote it while waiting for my ex-girlfriend to show up and talk to me, for some reason,” he said with a knowing smile. “It was just SUCH an unproductive conversation. No, I’m kidding, don’t say that to her.” 

In the first verse, he establishes feelings of restrictiveness: My clothes are all wrinkled, they’re stuffed in my suitcase/ But, it doesn’t even matter, I wear the same thing every day. Upon reflection, he understands how he needs to proceed. I’m livin’ in a vacuum, and nothin’s comin’ through/ I wish I didn’t have to, but I’m ostracizing you from my life.

An official music video was released alongside the track this past Friday, half of which displays luke in a compromising position of literal entanglement. The binds are drawn tighter as the video progresses, until they are eventually trimmed, and luke is able to begin shedding the restraints. The other half sees him coming to terms with, and unleashing, the anger that potentially led to said entanglement. “We rented a box truck, built a set inside of it, and then destroyed it,” he admitted at the Greenhouse. 

Listen to "living room" below: