BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Find Local//findlocal.community//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:ca45ad0c-76ca-4dd6-88db-c4c5672a60c7@findlocal.community DTSTAMP:20261011T225135Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261016T200000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261016T220000 SUMMARY:Kelsey Lu DESCRIPTION:It’s been seven years since Kelsey Lu released their debut al bum Blood\, a baroque\, cello-led exorcism that introduced a singular vo ice moving between the sacred and the sensual. Seven years after the rel ease of their debut album Blood\, a baroque\, cello-led exorcism that in troduced a singular voice moving between the sacred and the sensual\, Ke lsey Lu returns with So Help Me God. Due June 2026 via Dirty Hit\, the 1 0-track album is Lu’s most fearless and fully realised work to date. Co- produced by Lu\, Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman and mixed by Oli Jacobs\ , features contributions from Sampha\, Kamasi Washington\,Lady Jess and Kim Gordon. It is not a healing record. It is a reckoning. Across its te n songs\, Lu traces a landscape of transformation — where devotion\, des ire\, grief and transcendence collapse into one another. “A lot has happ ened in the past seven years\, a lot of healing and growth\,” Lu says. “ But this isn’t really a healing album. It’s more of a reckoning. It’s ab out facing the parts of myself I tried to move past\, and realizing they were still shaping everything. This album is me standing in that truth instead of trying to transcend it.” If Blood was an introduction - lush\ , devotional\, orchestral - So Help Me God is an arrival. Harder. Hungri er. Willing to sit in the dark. In 2020\, during a residency at Palm Hei ghts\, \, Lu set up a studio on the first day\, ready to begin again. Wh en they reached for the only cello they had ever owned for the past 20 y ears\, it cracked in their hands. “It felt really symbolic\,” they recal l. “I went into a deep mourning state. It holds memories. It holds energ y. And suddenly\, that was gone.” The world outside was collapsing too. It was the early months of COVID. Borders closed. Flights cancelled. Lu was stranded on the island - strict lockdown laws meant stepping outside could mean fines or jail time\; helicopters and drones circled overhead while police cars patrolled the streets. Music became survival. Each mo rning before sunrise\, Lu would slip out\, sometimes hopping a fence int o the grounds of an abandoned structure to film the dawn. Each evening t hey documented the sunset\, sharing the moments online in a series that became HYDROHARMONIA - a daily ritual of sound and image meant to counte r the dread and endless doomscrolling of that moment. “I documented ever y sunrise and every sunset\,” Lu says. “It was a way to cope with whatev er the fuck was going on.” *add onto the end of this quote* "My instinct ual drive and method of survival was to turn to nature and the only othe r thing I've ever known to keep me alive\, music." What followed were ye ars of movement - London\, upstate New York\, Indonesia\, Los Angeles - and a spiritual deep dive through reiki\, dreamwork\, plant medicine\, b reathwork and water cleansing ceremonies. Relationships dissolved and re formed. Faith collapsed and reassembled in new shapes. They stepped away from the major label system. Isolation became both a wound and teacher. *i think adding a before wound gives it a slightly softer feel* “Reckon ing with the fact that I’ve felt isolated and alone for most of my life\ ,” Lu reflects. “Making this record has been crawling out of that well.” That sense of emergence runs through So Help Me God. Sonically\, it is meticulous and cinematic - light and shadow moving across drum & bass pu lses\, distorted guitars\, choral swells and dark electronic textures. T here are echoes of post-punk austerity\, devotional minimalism and flash es of arena-scale pop. In Los Angeles\, Lu connected with Rothman before later expanding the collaboration with Antonoff. Initially hesitant aft er past experiences with high-profile male producers\, Lu found somethin g different here: play. “I knew it was right when I was under the hood o f the piano with a paintbrush on the strings and he was at the drums wit h another paintbrush\,” Lu says. “It was in that moment when I realized how much I missed that kind of connection - playtime and collaboration.” That spirit of communion ripples across the album. On opener “Reaper\,” Gordon\, Antonoff\, Zem Audu\, Lady Jess and Washington weave saxophone \, violin and shredded guitar into something feral and ecstatic. A child ren’s choir in Rome rises on “Cutting Off the Head of a Ghost\,” origina lly written with Patrick Wimberly for Arcane — a moment of queer tendern ess refracted into something mythic. Lead single “Running To Pain” is de votional and dangerous at once: a cry to God for the thing you know will undo you. “When I fall back on my knees and I can’t let go when that lo ok of desperation calls out my name\,” Lu sings. Visually\, Lu drew insp iration from the stark chiaroscuro of Caravaggio - bodies emerging from darkness\, divinity rendered in flesh and bruise. That same tension anim ates the music: on “Only the Lonely\,” Lu’s voice slices through urgent\ , drum & bass-inspired production. “I disagree with the way that you lov ed me\,” they sing. On “Portrait of a Lady On Fire\,” inspired by the fi lm Portrait of a Lady on Fire\, longing burns slow and incandescent. Bor n in North Carolina and based in New York City\, Lu has long moved fluid ly between sound\, image\, healing and performance\, expanding the possi bilities of contemporary artistry. A composer as much as a songwriter\, their work includes original scores for Netflix’s award-winning document ary Daughters and A24’s BAFTA-winning Earth Mama\, alongside commissions across fashion and film. Their creative universe spans collaborations w ith visionaries such as Yves Tumor\, Jamie xx\, Debbie Harry and Skrille x\, alongside artistic partnerships with Nan Goldin\, Wu Tsang and Jacol by Satterwhite\, and brands including Gucci\, Miu Miu and Bottega Veneta . The project also unfolds visually through a collaborative sequence of short films inspired by So Help Me God. The album is accompanied by a sh ort film created in collaboration with BAFTA-award-winning director Sava nah Leaf\, starring French actor Garance Marillier with official photogr aphy by Yuma Al-Arashi. Together\, the record and film form a single nar rative work\, reinforcing Lu’s position at the intersection of music\, f ine art and culture. “I disappeared for a while\, even from myself\,” Lu says. “There was a lot of grieving. But on the other side of that\, I f ound people again. I found play again.” So Help Me God does not offer ea sy answers. It offers something braver: surrender. It begins in fracture and moves toward something harder won: connection.\n\nTickets: https:// www.axs.com/events/1477935/kelsey-lu-tickets\n\nhttps://findlocal.commun ity/event/ca45ad0c-76ca-4dd6-88db-c4c5672a60c7 LOCATION:El Rey Theatre\, Los Angeles\, CA URL:https://findlocal.community/event/ca45ad0c-76ca-4dd6-88db-c4c5672a60c 7 STATUS:CONFIRMED SEQUENCE:0 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR