Luke De-Sciscio and the emotional folk terra firma of "Pulling on Each Other" (LOL)

"held up on tenderhooks suspended from our heads"

Luke De-Sciscio, singer-songwriter, folk singer, distant sagely friend and cosmic mirror has just released an album entitled "Extended Folk Boy Playlist". It is remarkable not only in it's sheer amount of folk poetry (18 tracks) but in it's style and conception. Listening to selected cuts, a cursory inviting swim, it is quite apparent that De-Sciscio has a mind brimming with things to share and like a lot of his previous works he does so while walking the tightrope of a live performance as the press notes indicate so well of this work:

Timeless, authentic, unflinching devotion to the truth, bottled at the source, without restraint, preserving a single instance in time, through one microphone, with no edits.

I love this idea of "preserving a single instance of time" in such a raw way. While not an original idea, it is one that De-Sciscio embodies like no other and along with his very fluid rapid flow of lyrical poetry pouring over his lips I can only surmise that if he didn't express his art as raw indie folk he would be an amazing rapper. As jarring as that sounds, it makes some sort of abstract sense to me. 

The track "Pulling on Each Other" (LOL) is drenched heavily in askew poetry blended in with emotional punches all at the same time. The live nature feels very buskery here and you can imagine De-Sciscio riding the rails with his encyclopedia of thoughts in his head and his guitar only to embark onto a town square and put his hat down. The song percolates with blues bends as the words take you to a Mad Hatter tea party.

A bend in a ripple in time
tonight the goose drank wine
such a mess of a pond beneath the stratosphere
spinning which ways from the drain
it's alarming your voice
from behind the canopy
clearly I've gone insane

As I listen to De-Sciscio I couldn't help but think of disparate luminaries like Bob Dylan and Dando Shaft in a collider although De-Sciscio's folk distillation is unique. What struck me here is the illusionary tones that reach out into space while those aforementioned folk punches rattle and ground you to terra firma. De-Sciscio knows how to put his existence on a silver shiny plate, one so shiny and large that we see each other. 

tell me I'm a complete soul
oh no you said 'ass hole'
chip away with one hand
whilst scooping with the other
traditionally I'm found, rearranging sand
bathing in oceans of light
it's a heavy thing, the weight of existing
but I can't be sure if we're not pulling on each other

Luke De-Sciscio talks in our ears creating prose, passages that bear repeated listens in order to navigate those thoughts that lovingly become our own personal scenarios and Rorschach ink blots to take something from. I vow to speak with this poet and musician in 2021 and to pick his brain and heart just a little bit. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

Luke De-Sciscio · Pulling On Each Other (LOL)

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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:



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https://linktr.ee/lukedesciscio


Luke ‘the Folk Boy’ De-Sciscio is a UK singer/songwriter whose music bristles with a sense of urgent authenticity. Whether it be the brooding, heart-on-sleeve swagger of 'I Gave You All My Love' (Spotify: Most Beautiful Songs In The World, 123.6k plays), reaching into the upper echelons to retrieve notes with which only heaven is familiar, or be it the pure, whimsical frivolity of 'R.O.B.Y.N.' (Spotify: Lost in the Woods, 1.14M plays), twisting with wordplay the likes of which Lewis Carroll would relish in undressing.

…of Luke’s music, one thing is forever true, no matter which mask he wears; be it the ‘folk boy’, the troubadour, the messiah or the hopeless human, there is perpetually, underscoring every syllable, a sense of impassioned spontaneity. His music surges as if straight from the ether, bottled for prosperity, preserving a single glimpse in time. Luke foregoes the modern recording techniques that would afford him unnecessary consideration; there are no edits, no marketing, no smoke and mirrors: cluttering the craft, adulterating the spirit of song.

Instead, it is with this revery, to the likes of ‘Astral Weeks’ or the impassioned spiritual gripping of tongues that Luke carries the torch, holding a candle to the past and simultaneously pushing the frontier of philosophical lyricism. Never though, be it through wit or despair, do we lose that central thread; the feeling that this character isn’t a character at all, it’s someone, who through music, we can come to know entirely.

AND THAT is a gift, as delicate as it is seismic; that in a World of affronts and gilding, of posturing and appeals, Luke De-Sciscio offers us this: a persistent outpouring of unguarded, unwavering, unflinching devotion to the truth.

The warmth of his guitar, the waiver of his voice, the breadth of his soul.

Luke De-Sciscio, folk, indie folk, dream folk, busker folk, askew poetry, sagely, emotional mirror, poet, singer songwriter, cosmic, "Pulling on Each Other"