Interview LUMP: “[It’s a huge joy] to just dive into something in a completely different world”

At the time of recording, writing was also underway for her seventh studio album ‘Song For Our Daughter’, meaning she had to hone the art of switching fluidly between musical worlds. “Occasionally there were times where it was obvious to us both that I was using the wrong voice; that it was the wrong songwriter speaking,” she smiles. “I was trying to push Laura Marling down to put all my energies into LUMP and she would occasionally fight her way back up again. But ultimately LUMP won.

“I invest a lot in LUMP as an escape from - what has become - quite a weird prison being an artist under my own name,” she continues. “Because however inadvertently, you do get stuck in a persona. LUMP is the complete opposite of that persona, so it's personally a big relief for me.”

With Mike, Laura gets to explore her playful side, while Lindsay gets to scale back his usual operations working as part of a seven-piece band, focusing instead on fleshing out the offbeat musical universe of a fictional character. It’s a world that’s definitely got weirder with Album Two. Citing the live dates around the first record as highly influential, alongside the synth sounds of Suzanne Ciani, the textural rhythms of John Hassell and Brian Eno, and Laura’s current studies in psychoanalysis, Mike is billing ‘Animal’ as “a slightly bombastic, twisted synth ride into an inverted universe which we haven't quite understood yet, with big drums and slightly more proggy moments.”

COVID-permitting, the plan is to take the album on the road, as well as the giant LUMP puppet - if Laura can figure out how to make him move onstage. “He’s attached to a marionette bracket, but to work it would require a 10ft ceiling and some scaffolding,” she explains, while Mike chuckles in the background. “So, basically, watch this space.”

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