Lucy Tun holds a mirror up to the collective face of her generation so closely they can see their breath on it. But the Burmese-British artist is interested in more than strategic angles, tricks of light and carefully crafted illusion – she’s searching for the real image.
Her latest EP Unreal traces the blurred line where fantasy ends and reality begins; the mascara-smeared, screen-smashed collision between your curated world and the facts that fall short. And it’s there, that in-between space of drifting away with a daydream while being harshly tethered to earth, that you’ll find Lucy Tun – and every twenty-something who feels a pang of resonance in her music. For the first time since her artistic reincarnation from LCYTN to her complete name, a choice driven by maturity and a statement of commitment to her vision, Lucy is in soft-focus: no longer content to be the main character, Unreal sees her flip her camera lens to the world around her.
Rather than yielding to an internalised pressure to complicate her sound, Unreal sees her lean into her pop instincts where simplicity is not a criticism but a virtue. More than a songwriter, she is a storyteller, with each of its seven tracks marking the turning of another chapter in a self-contained world. Lucy captures their essence with buzzwords; mental mood boards to stay focused on her intention: change; disconnect, time; obsession; travel; miscommunication; fun – all bound up in the contradictions of what it means to be Unreal.
Lead single ‘Kulture Klub’ is a glossy blind item from the fashion world, spilling the truth behind “that girl” on your timeline. Lucy’s honeyed voice over its trap-influenced chorus tempts you to lose sight of the story, just as the veneer of new jeans and Jacquemus handbags can distract you from the cracks they conceal: “New face in the mirror, well-dressed, depressed.” She shares, “I think that this is something that people in their twenties feel quite a lot: having this idealised life whilst also trying to live in the moment… always needing something more, always striving towards something unattainable.”
Lucy Tun ‘Kulture Klub’ – TikTok Stats: Combined views: 166M Combined likes: 11M Combined creations: 167k #1 on TikTok Hot 50 + & Top 10 for x7 consecutive months