Photo: Graham Tolbert
Lupin, real name Jake Luppen, has broken into the world of solo performance and introduced us to a whole new person on his debut self-titled album.
Luppen is known primarily as the lead vocalist and guitarist for bands like Hippo Campus and Baby Boys. However, he has revealed an extraordinary side to his songwriting and artistic skills in this solo project. This might feel like meeting a brand new person for the first time, but it is just his way of breaking free whilst staying true to himself. The array of visuals for this album is pretty wild and his signature Hippo Campus indie sound is far from the magic experienced on this release.
The album starts out strong with ‘Harbor’ and intends to shock us with a contrast of his previous work, giving us a hit of his artistic development. Full-on autotune and notes that sound like computer pixels make us feel like a part of a dreamy video game world. ‘Instant Crush’ by Daft Punk might be one of the lost sisters for this masterpiece.
Luppen opens up about his thought process while writing ‘Vampire’ via a Grand Jury press release:
“I was fully under the impression that I was dying when I wrote this – I had gotten a CT scan a couple of weeks before that revealed a mass in my brain, which led me to believe that I had brain cancer or some form of Parkinson’s.”
This might explain his reasoning behind having blood all over his face in the music video. He is good at pretending to be a vampire, but he fails to do so when walking his cute dog in the daytime. It is worth mentioning that Kevin from the band Sure Sure is responsible for the drums on this one. A simple but creative video direction is making Luppen’s natural voice and skin routine shine through, directed by a friend of Bon Iver – Aaron Anderson.
It begins to get emotional on ‘Murderer’. All of the LANY, The 1975 and The Japanese House fans have officially entered the chat. This is the moment when we cry our hearts out about painful breakups and the process of moving on. It is such an incredibly sad song that can somehow also be vibed to. It has been successfully delivered with its heartfelt melodies and the beautiful, nostalgic sound.
He shares struggles with his own sexuality on ‘KO-Kid’, saying:
“I’ve spent most of my life repressing my attraction to people that didn’t identify as women, so I wrote the idea of the KO KID character as a way to fight those inhibitive and self-imposed judgments.”
He uses gender-neutral pronouns for this song to reference an individual. Having attraction towards a non-binary person, he comes to terms with his own queerness and celebrates it proudly.
Working together with the producer BJ Burton (Bon Iver, Low, Charli XCX) on songs like ‘Lazy’ and ‘May’, has provided a fresh and interesting touch to the sound of Luppen’s work. The funky-driven ‘May’ is the definition of pop with some catchy drum patterns and falsetto vocals. This song focuses on coming to terms with the realisation that our young expectations of what our future should look like might not actually work out. Or rather shouldn’t work out. The post-chorus gives us Tame Impala vibes and it would be safe to say that Lupin is a chameleon when it comes to his recorded music. This track has the most plays on his Spotify so far, but it is also the first single he released.
Glass Animals’ ‘Gooey’ could have been a huge inspiration for ‘Gloomy’. The sound similarities and vocals are not far away from the band’s 2014 releases. He outlines the struggles he has faced in a relationship that has ended when writing the song. Luppen might have kept in mind one of his old Hippo Campus’ tracks, having similar lyrical lines from their tune titled ‘Golden.’
‘NZ’ (standing for New Zealand) was written during a Hippo Campus tour in 2019. A clear, simple-sounding lullaby piece is just the right way to end an album, and Luppen has shown incredible talent and diversity on this release. Every track sounds completely different and the ways he expresses himself are very contrasting. He might think of evolving a signature “Lupin sound”, but right now the unexpected nature of his music works to his advantage.
