TV Room is the new recording project of London-based multi-instrumentalist Lucy Rushton. Studying Popular Music at Goldsmiths University, Rushton cut her teeth with bands like Deep Tan, Prima Queen and Buggs, as well as being a touring member with the likes of Yard Act, Billy Nomates and The Big Moon. However she continued to hone her own sound, and this month sees this finally rise to the fore with the unveiling of the first TV Room single, ‘Balcony’, out via Sad Club Records.
The track, produced by Joseph Futak at Hermitage Works and mastered by Charlie Franics, sees Lucy Rushton joined by Birdie Rushton (bass) and Phoebe Crawford (violin). The sound’s richness is apparent from Rushton’s first words, her slow, lush delivery evoking a warmly intimate mood. This is balanced by a certain wryness, a subtle sardonic appreciation of wider circumstance which evokes a slacker edge. But rather than undermining the song’s emotional resonance, this dimension strengthens it, lending a sense of personality and lived experience that might be lacking from something entirely straight-laced.
The style is understandable given the nature of the single. “I wrote it as a sort of letter to someone who I couldn’t speak to at the time,” Rushton explains. “So in a way I see it as a subliminal message to them.” Far from painting some idealised picture, ‘Balcony’ is an earnest if indirect attempt to communicate the nuances of emotion. One which can hold the stripped back intimacy of the opening and the playful rhythm of the close without any sense of contradiction. A human song in which no feeling is held back. “Songwriting to me is basically like therapy,” Rushton concludes, “in that it’s where I put all of the feelings that I struggle saying out loud.”
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‘Balcony’ is out via Sad Club Records and you can get it from the TV Room Bandcamp page.
Photo by Syd Parsons