LIZ LAWRENCE will release her new album Peanuts on 7th June 2024 on Chrysalis Records. Today, 13th March, she shares the lead single, and album opener, Big Machine, which received its first play last night from Clara Amfo on Radio 1. Liz’s show at The Lexington, London on 20th March has been sold out since last year. Big Machine is her first single since last Autumn’s I Was There EP, the title track of which featured Steve Mason and was playlisted by BBC 6Music and Radio X.
Big Machine, which ends with the refrain, “Give myself back to mother nature, Daddy England is doing my head in,” is, Lawrence says, "the feeling of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, the frustration of trying to solve the climate crisis whilst the political classes drag their feet and the desire to do a Thoreau and go live in the woods. It’s a nod to alternative living and the battle of the Beanfield. It’s the book of trespass, it’s the guarding of statues, it’s my pot boiling over with frustration at the state of it all."
Watch the video for Big Machine, in which Liz, “got to be a fancy to? for the day, play golf and ride around in a Rolls Royce. What can I say, sometimes dreams do come true.”
In 2020, after a decade of living in London, Lawrence moved back to her hometown in the West Midlands. It had a sizeable impact on her new record, ‘Peanuts’. "It changed what I was writing about because it changed what I was looking at. Music, and culture, is so neglected outside of major cities. There's such a lot of regional snobbery," she says. “We are disconnecting from each other at a time when we've never needed connection more. I am afraid that we're losing physical spaces, and community spaces, and a sense of us all being together. More than ever, I think we have to rally against that loss."
Lawrence’s move back to her hometown was, like many musicians, a product of the toll the pandemic had taken on her ability to work. As a result, Lawrence su?ered a bout of serious depression. "Without a doubt, the absolute worst sickness I've ever had, in my life," she says. Recovery was a long and slow process. She turned to the natural world and began learning the names of birds and growing vegetables. Eventually, she felt able to try to write her way out of despair, as she had always done. The result is ‘Peanuts’.
Peanuts is a playground game, also known as Mercy, where two kids twist each other's fingers until one cries out, 'Peanuts!', signalling that they have met their pain threshold. The album ‘Peanuts’ is as wry and observational as her previous work. An “intensely British record”, it covers issues that really matter to Lawrence, like, "the growing wealth gap, and being forced to drive to the big Tescos, and everything I see around me every day, but, at the same time, the album is a reflection of how terrible I was feeling, in myself, when I wrote it. They felt connected, somehow - I felt like shit, and so often it feels like the country has gone to sh*t."
For the first time in years, Lawrence wanted to work with a producer. "I wanted the record to have been touched by someone other than myself," she explains. She looked through her favourite records, and the same name kept appearing: Ali Chant (Perfume Genius, Yard Act, Aldous Harding). "I messaged him, saying I wanted to make a record that sounded like Cate Le Bon meets Primal Scream, or Beck meets Gorillaz," she says. "And he was into it." Lawrence recorded the album at Chant's studio in Bristol, over two weeks.
Last year, Lawrence toured Europe with We Are Scientists, driving from the UK to Czechia and back in a camper van, and supported The Big Moon on their UK tour. She’s excited to get back on stage this year, and for the ‘Peanuts’ live show she has an idea: "I want to go on stage dressed in an Eton school uniform, if anyone's got a hook-up?"
Big Machine, which ends with the refrain, “Give myself back to mother nature, Daddy England is doing my head in,” is, Lawrence says, "the feeling of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, the frustration of trying to solve the climate crisis whilst the political classes drag their feet and the desire to do a Thoreau and go live in the woods. It’s a nod to alternative living and the battle of the Beanfield. It’s the book of trespass, it’s the guarding of statues, it’s my pot boiling over with frustration at the state of it all."
Watch the video for Big Machine, in which Liz, “got to be a fancy to? for the day, play golf and ride around in a Rolls Royce. What can I say, sometimes dreams do come true.”
In 2020, after a decade of living in London, Lawrence moved back to her hometown in the West Midlands. It had a sizeable impact on her new record, ‘Peanuts’. "It changed what I was writing about because it changed what I was looking at. Music, and culture, is so neglected outside of major cities. There's such a lot of regional snobbery," she says. “We are disconnecting from each other at a time when we've never needed connection more. I am afraid that we're losing physical spaces, and community spaces, and a sense of us all being together. More than ever, I think we have to rally against that loss."
Lawrence’s move back to her hometown was, like many musicians, a product of the toll the pandemic had taken on her ability to work. As a result, Lawrence su?ered a bout of serious depression. "Without a doubt, the absolute worst sickness I've ever had, in my life," she says. Recovery was a long and slow process. She turned to the natural world and began learning the names of birds and growing vegetables. Eventually, she felt able to try to write her way out of despair, as she had always done. The result is ‘Peanuts’.
Peanuts is a playground game, also known as Mercy, where two kids twist each other's fingers until one cries out, 'Peanuts!', signalling that they have met their pain threshold. The album ‘Peanuts’ is as wry and observational as her previous work. An “intensely British record”, it covers issues that really matter to Lawrence, like, "the growing wealth gap, and being forced to drive to the big Tescos, and everything I see around me every day, but, at the same time, the album is a reflection of how terrible I was feeling, in myself, when I wrote it. They felt connected, somehow - I felt like shit, and so often it feels like the country has gone to sh*t."
For the first time in years, Lawrence wanted to work with a producer. "I wanted the record to have been touched by someone other than myself," she explains. She looked through her favourite records, and the same name kept appearing: Ali Chant (Perfume Genius, Yard Act, Aldous Harding). "I messaged him, saying I wanted to make a record that sounded like Cate Le Bon meets Primal Scream, or Beck meets Gorillaz," she says. "And he was into it." Lawrence recorded the album at Chant's studio in Bristol, over two weeks.
Last year, Lawrence toured Europe with We Are Scientists, driving from the UK to Czechia and back in a camper van, and supported The Big Moon on their UK tour. She’s excited to get back on stage this year, and for the ‘Peanuts’ live show she has an idea: "I want to go on stage dressed in an Eton school uniform, if anyone's got a hook-up?"
