Luvcat has teamed up with John Cooper Clarke for their eerie collaboration ‘He’s My Man (The Anniversary)’.
The Liverpudlian noir-pop singer has released the reimagined version of her viral murder ballad, with the Bard of Salford writing original poetry for the song. Clarke is a legendary punk poet; his 1982 song ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ was famously covered by the Arctic Monkeys for their 2013 album ‘AM‘ and recently went viral on TikTok, passing a billion streams on Spotify.
On ‘He’s My Man (The Anniversary)’, Clarke performs as Luvcat’s victim, narrating his gradual poisoning by the singer in a grizzly baritone: “Clinically hypoxic, literally toxic / I keep fallin’ in and out of sleep…”
Speaking about the collaboration, Luvcat says: “I met John a few months back at The Northern Music Awards. He was being honoured and I won breakthrough artist of the year that night. I was so afraid to speak to him… my dad was a punk and John’s work was spoken about a lot in our house. I found the courage to go over to his table and he couldn’t have been more sweet to me. I think John is the coolest man in the country and to have him play the role of my poisoned husband for the anniversary of this song is a true honour.”
Clarke also appears in the spooky music video sipping his poisoned wine – a shoot which Luvcat said was filmed with an extra layer of eerieness. “There was actually a hornet swarm when we were filming and everyone was quietly terrified, matching the unsettling atmosphere we tried to create in the song. It was very very fun to be John’s murderous mob bride for the night.”
Watch the video for ‘He’s My Man (The Anniversary)’ below:
Luvcat is set to release her debut album ‘Vicious Delicious‘ on October 31 via AWAL, sharing its title track back in July – you can pre-order it here.
The singer has teased that the album’s “lipstick’s a little smudged and its stockings are a little torn, but I am so proud of how we’ve captured this strange, magical story and all the lovers and libertines I’ve met along the way. I think the record is old school romance slightly off its hinges. A swinging pendulum between love and addiction, ecstasy and melancholy, eroticism and innocence, the deliciously vicious and the viciously delicious.”
She is soon to tour the UK, Europe and North America for a string of dates. Luvcat will commence the tour in Glasgow on November 6, passing through London, Manchester and more before heading over to Berlin on November 17 and travelling through Europe.
Then, Luvcat will round off the tour with select dates in the US, starting in Boston on December 1, passing through cities such as New York, Toronto and Los Angeles until she finishes with a gig in San Francisco on the 13th.
Find remaining tickets here for the UK and here for the US and see all dates below:
Luvcat will play:
NOVEMBER
6 – Glasgow, SWG3 TV Studio
7 – Dublin, The Academy
10 – Bristol, Trinity
12 – London, Koko
13 – Liverpool, O2 Academy
14 – Manchester, Academy 2
17 – Berlin, Lido
18 – Warsaw, Niebo
20 – Amsterdam, Melkweg
21 – Cologne, Gloria
22 – Paris, La Trabendo
DECEMBER
1 – Boston, Brighton Music Hall
2 – Philadelphia, The Foundry & The Filmore
4 – Brooklyn, Warsaw
5 – Washington DC, The Atlantis
7 – Toronto, The Axis Club
9 – Chicago, Schubas Tavern
11 – Los Angeles, El Rey Theatre
13 – San Francisco, The Independent
NME spoke to Luvcat last November, with the singer telling us about her upcoming album. “I get a lot of questions about ‘when are you putting an album out?’, and that obviously is something that I’m dying to do,” she said. “It’s lovely that people are hungry for it, just got to make sure the art is right, and then we’re working as fast as we can to get it all out and keep feeding it.
“Hopefully by next year, there’ll be a bigger body of work,” she added. “I’m not in it for anything other than to be able to get on the road and make an album. I want to do something outrageous for the cover – I can’t tell it here, because I’ve not fully decided it in my head, but I want to do something naughty.”
