KATIE BROWN - 20 OCT 2021

“Woah, it’s trippy being a human, people think it’s normal but nah-uh, it’s not”

Life’s for the living, but it sure does make a body tired. What do you get when you cross the highs with the sighs? Brand new album Buda by The Phoenix Foundation’s Luke Buda, that’s what. Velvety, dreamy and drenched in a warm soft-rock nostalgia, the LP is a collection of tracks that tempers reflective moments of introspection with Luke’s signature wry, sardonic humour.

Luke’s third solo album, Buda is packed to the brim with tracks featuring contributions from a pretty healthy cross-section of collaborators, such as Don McGlashan, Joe Lindsay and Toby Laing from Fat Freddy’s Drop, Riki Gooch, Dayle Jellyman, Jacqui Nyman, and all of the members of The Phoenix Foundation, with Anita Clark (Motte) adding an extra vocal lushness to every single track. As if that wasn’t enough, stepping in with lashings of lyrical content to complement Luke’s musings around ‘feeling old and tired and anxious about everything’ is renowned Aotearoa novelist/poet/musician Damien Wilkins.

Unsurprisingly given its powerhouse of contributors, Buda is both a collection of songs that is rife with musical mastery but is also comfortably relatable. Providing those moments of “oh, someone else feels that way too” in how it portrays everyday mundanities and anxieties, the album both looks back with a sense of jaded nostalgia while also looking simultaneously at the present world with an unflinching gaze of realism cloaked in wry humour. Behind this hovers a Buda-style sincerity, and that’s where the tracks become gently compelling - but with a twinkle in their eye. Buda is a night-ride with the windows down, a companion on your life-navigation travels that will, pardon the cliché, make you laugh at the things that make you want to cry.

It’s been 12 years since Luke’s last solo release (Vesuvius in 2008, which followed 2006’s Special Surprise), but in the interim he has been keeping himself very busy across a range of different projects. 2016 saw him co-write and produce Sir Dave Dobbyn’s Harmony House, in 2017 he released an album as one quarter of the band Teeth (an outfit featuring David Long of The Mutton Birds), and since 2007 he has been composing music for television and film as Moniker. Films such as Eagle vs Shark, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Boy feature Moniker’s work, with Boy winning them Best Original Score at the NZ Film and TV Awards, and TV series Cleverman gaining them another win with APRA’s Best Original Music in a Series in 2018.

Factoring in ongoing work with The Phoenix Foundation to this noteworthy cocktail of accomplishments makes it no surprise that Luke’s solo hiatus has been a long one, but the long-awaited Buda is a claim-staking album that confirms there is plenty more goodness on standby within the Buda collective of pursuits.

Listen to the album and read our interview with Luke below!

Find Luke Buda on Instagram | Facebook | Spotify

KATIE: HOW DO YOU FIND WRITING MUSIC NOW AS OPPOSED TO EARLY PHOENIX FOUNDATION DAYS? HAS MUCH CHANGED?

Luke: Oh yeah. For one thing I have a small and slightly shitty but reasonably functional studio of my own - my garage. My day job is composing scores for Film and TV (as part of a trio called Moniker with Sam and Con from TPF) so I am generally in the garage most days making music full time all the time! Usually by myself in there too as all there Monikers have a studio of their own. So yeah, pretty different to the whole band being in a room and working out a song in the old fashioned band way, and then trying to record it all in a couple of days.

OFTEN WHEN I SET OUT TO LISTEN TO AN ALBUM IN FULL, I WONDER WHETHER THE ARTIST HAS APPROACHED IT WITH SOME UNIFYING THEME, OR IF IT’S SOMEHOW DRAWN ITSELF TOGETHER AS THE WRITING PROCESS HAS GONE ALONG. IN BUDA, IT WAS A VERY DELICIOUS AND RELATABLE JOURNEY – ADDRESSING ISSUES LIKE AGEING, THINGS NOT BEING AS THEY ONCE WERE, ANXIETY, AND SO ON…THE PERKS OF BEING A FULLY GROWN-UP ADULT, I GUESS! DID IT SURPRISE YOU WHERE YOU WOUND UP WITH IT, AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT?

I very rarely set out with a pre planned notion of what I am going to do. Especially with lyrics where it really feels like a struggle for me to get enough lines that I don’t hate to actually have a finished song. So the fact that it ended up almost being a concept album about just feeling tired and old is just because that umm is the truest expression of where I was at I guess? I hope there’s enough humour in there to balance the flavours of happy / sad.

THE ALBUM TRANSLATES AS WRY AND HONEST SNAPSHOTS OF DAILY LIFE IN ALL ITS ANXIETY AND MUNDANITY, AND, DARE I SAY, EXISTENTIALISM. HOW DO YOU BALANCE YOUR EVERYDAY WORLD WITH ALL OF YOUR VARIOUS UNDERTAKINGS?

Not very well to be honest. We have a very chaotic household. I struggle with basic day to day admin, as mentioned in the album closer Brain Jail.

SONGWRITING IS SO INTERESTING IN WHAT IT TURNS UP. WHEN YOU’RE WRITING FOR YOURSELF, I THINK THAT EMOTIONS AND WHAT YOU’RE FACING ON THE DAILY CAN OFTEN BE QUITE SURPRISING AND CONFRONTING WHEN YOU LISTEN BACK AND REALISE WHERE YOU REALLY WERE – KIND OF LIKE A MOOD RING (THANKS, LORDE). DID YOU HAVE THESE MOMENTS IN ‘BUDA’?

I feel a lot better about the lyrics on Buda than I do about my old albums (this will no doubt change over time). That was a big thing for me. The fact I find listening to Special Surprise and Vesuvius hard work because of the lyrics. Too sincere on the first one, too cynical on the second. So I was conscious of trying not too indulge my natural Polish pessimism too much. Or at least, when that started happening, to try to get some humour in there.

YOU ROPED IN DAMIEN WILKINS TO WRITE LYRICS FOR SOME OF THE TRACKS, WHICH IS PRETTY COOL. WHEN YOU COLLABORATE LIKE THAT, DO YOU SEND HIM THE TRACK WITH A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT, IN A SENSE, OR DID YOU WAIT TO SEE HOW HE’D INTERPRET YOUR SOUND? WERE YOU SURPRISED WITH WHAT HE CAME BACK WITH, AND DID YOU FIND THAT BOTH OF YOUR MEANINGS TENDED TO INTERSECT?

I didn’t try to influence him in any way. But there is no manifesto either. Mostly I was impressed at his turnaround time. When I sent him ‘Here Comes the Wind’, the lyrics were finished the next day. It was almost irritating considering it takes me up to three years to finish a song.

IN ‘DON’T THINK IN BED’ YOU SING, “THE RIVER I SWAM IN WHEN I WAS A CHILD / YOU CAN’T GO THERE NOW, THEY’VE PUT UP A SIGN” – SUCH A LINE! AND A BIT HAUNTING, NOT GONNA LIE. DO YOU THINK YOU LOOK BACK ON CHILDHOOD WITH IDEALISED VISION? DOES IT MAKE YOU SAD TO THINK BACK?

That is a Damien lyric. It’s good eh? My childhood memories are weird because I came to NZ when I was 8 and had to learn how to speak English and I think somehow that makes the pre 8 years old memories even more distant and dreamy, because they are in a different language!

PHOTO: DOUG JOHNS

I REALLY LOVE THE WHOLE SENSE OF MEANING BEHIND ‘MY NAKED BODY’. YOU INFUSE YOUR SONGS WITH A WRY HUMOUR, WHICH I REALLY LOVE – AND IT IS THIS PERFECT COMPLEMENT TO THE MEANING OF THE TRACK: THAT WE REALLY ALL ARE THESE BEAUTIFUL, FRAGILE, IMMORTALITY-INFUSED PEOPLE AND WE REALLY DON’T LIKE TO EXPOSE ALL OF OURSELVES, SO WE DRESS IN WHAT WE CAN TO NOT HAVE TO SHOW THAT. DO YOU THINK THAT AS WE GET A LITTLE OLDER WE GET A BIT MORE COMFORTABLE WITH OURSELVES?

Yeah I would hope so…I guess I believe you just need to try to embrace whatever kind of funny looking character flawed human dork you are as best as you can without being too much of a dick to other people?

YOU NAMED THE ALBUM ‘BUDA’. LISTENING TO IT, IT JUST SOUNDS SO SOLID, WITH THIS SETTLED AND COMFORTABLE, LIVED-IN MUSICALITY – IT’S YOU AND YOU COLLABORATING WITH SEASONED MUSICIANS WHO ARE JUST REALLY, REALLY GOOD AT WHAT YOU ALL DO: A KIND OF MASTERY WHERE YOU DON’T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING, AND INSTEAD CAN JUST DWELL WITHIN THE MUSIC AND LET IT BE WHAT IT NEEDS TO BE. DID THIS CONTRIBUTE TO THE NAME – A SENSE OF BEING QUINTESSENTIALLY YOURSELF?

Yes. But. Also. BUDA is a tidy name visually and a cool sounding word… and I didn’t have to think about some other name and I guess yes I was looking at this as a kind of reset anyway. it has been so long since the last solo albums.

I WAS LISTENING TO YOUR RECENT ‘PLAYING FAVOURITES’ RNZ FEATURE, AND LOVED THAT YOU FEATURED THAT MOST BRILLIANT OF TRACKS ‘SEXY BOY’ BY AIR (LONG STANDING FAVOURITES!). YOU SHARED A STORY ABOUT LISTENING TO THE SONG FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND IT BEING A KIND OF WATERSHED MOMENT FOR YOU; THAT PREVIOUSLY YOU’D BEEN MORE INTO HEAVY METAL AND GRUNGE. I KNOW THAT KIND OF FEELING – FOR ME IT WAS THE MARIE ANTOINETTE SOUNDTRACK BACK IN 2007, AND I CAN REMEMBER THE EXACT MOMENT WHERE IT SUNK IN AND I WAS BLOWN AWAY BECAUSE IT WAS SO CLEVER – THOSE MOMENTS ARE SUCH GAME-CHANGERS! WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THAT TRACK IN PARTICULAR THAT GOT TO YOU? DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR THOUGHTS AT THE TIME?

Well for one thing we didn’t know what was making the sounds. That felt exciting. It was not long after that that I bought my Rhodes. I guess they were the gateway drug into a love of synths.

ON THE SUBJECT OF AIR, THEIR MUSIC IS VERY LUSH AND CINEMATIC, BUT THEY’VE NAILED BEING ABLE TO MARRY THAT WITH ELECTRO-POP SENSIBILITIES. YOU DO A LOT OF WRITING FOR FILM – DO YOU THINK LISTENING TO THEM CONTRIBUTED TO SETTING YOU OFF IN THAT PARTICULAR DIRECTION?

Yes. Although Conrad was always pushing the Paris, Texas soundtrack. Also we were lucky to live in the same neighbourhood as Taika and we kinda got the opportunity to do the Eagle vs Shark score in a very classic casual way and we’ve just carried on doing that stuff. If we hadn’t managed to get into that world I don’t know what I’d be doing.

WHO ARE YOUR CURRENT FAVOURITE ARTISTS?

I’ve been listening to Arthur Russell, John Grant, Reb Fountain, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Karen Dalton, Thundercat.

YOU’RE ALL SET TO HEAD OUT ON TOUR WITH THE ALBUM, COVID-ALLOWING, AND YOU PROMISE AN AMALGAM OF MUSICAL DELIGHTS FROM YOUR LINE-UP THROUGH TO THE MATERIAL YOU’LL BE PLAYING. GIVE US A ONE-LINE TEASER!

Here is the worst one-line teaser of all time: Tour is postponed until further notice.