Introducing alt-pop sensation Luxury Goods…

Sheffield-based alt-pop artist Luxury Goods recently released her EP ‘This Is No Time To Dance’, we grabbed a chance to chat with her about what the definition of being a woman is and what she wants to achieve with her music.

You’ve recently released your EP ‘This is No Time To Dance’ – what is something you wanted to achieve with your recent offering? 

I wanted to step up the quality of our music and share a first snippet of what Luxury Goods is all about.

My initial goals definitely got a bit blurred along the way because of multiple covid and vinyl delays, but it also gave me time to keep developing behind the scenes and make it the best debut EP we could possibly make with the resources we had.

In the end, all I really cared about was sharing the EP with our listeners, connecting with anyone who feels a connection with the music and starting playing shows again after 2 years away from the stage. It’s been wonderful to do all those things again, and I’m grateful to anyone who’s interacted with us about the EP in any way. It really means so much to know people relate to the words I write and the melodies we come up with.

Is there anything you wished to be different in terms of your EP? 

There are always so many things that don’t quite go according to plan, and I’ve come to terms with most of it, but I really do wish our vinyl had arrived in time for our EP release show a few weeks ago. Sadly, the delays were completely out of my control and customs take a little bit longer these days. The moment I unpacked the first box most of those frustrations vanished into thin air though. It’s the best feeling to hold your own record in your hands for the first time. 

How was your writing experience?

It was a great experience of growth in both writing the songs and working through the events that led me to write most of the lyrics. Tiny Moving Parts was definitely the most personal song on the EP because it was purely about my relationship with my brain and body which I haven’t always had a great fondness of throughout the years. Sharing those personal feelings with people is always scary, but I believe that opening up and letting others add their own meaning based on their experiences is one of the most valuable tools we have as songwriters (and it very much helps me organise my thoughts). 

I particularly loved working with the band and our producer Callum Benson to fully develop the sound of the songs individually but also as a whole to work together on the EP. This was the first time we worked on a bigger body of work, rather than separate singles, and it was nice to think about the overall sound a bit differently than before. I remember for example changing the original instrumentation of Suffocated because it didn’t quite fit with the other songs, and I fell in love with the song all over again because it almost seemed new. 

The slightly scattered nature of finishing up the EP throughout the pandemic also made me learn how to record vocals at home very quickly, which definitely helped to get me through the first lockdown. 

There are themes within the EP that encapsulates being a woman – what is your definition of being a woman?

My writing is all about my emotions and mindset about certain events in my life that have shaped me as a person. Naturally, a lot of those events are related to my personal feelings about being a woman because it’s a massive part of how I view the world and how I view my own life and experiences. 

When I wrote Again, a song about periods, I did so because I wanted to start a conversation and hopefully make other people more comfortable to openly talk about periods themselves and ask more questions regardless of whether you experience them or not.

At the same time, I find it very hard to come up with a definition of being a woman because to me, once you start defining what being a woman is you will exclude. I have never doubted that I’m a woman, and I love being a woman, but I have definitely felt excluded because of other people’s definitions of what a woman should be. 

I can only talk about my own experiences of being a woman and even though there will be a lot of people who feel the same way, there are many things I haven’t or never will encounter. 

Maybe it’s just an indescribable feeling.

Give us the weirdest or funniest fact about you… 

I can sort of pop my shoulders out of their sockets so it looks like I’ve got a big dent in my shoulder. I’ve never tried to explain this without being able to demonstrate it, so I hope that makes some sense haha.

Words: Geo Blackman

Image Credits: Ai Narapol