We Speak Music

Luke Marzec releases sublime soulful tune ‘Broken Promises’

Published

9 months ago

August 1, 2025

Don Reed

“Literal blue-eyed soul man Luke Marzec has the type of rich, booming, wise-beyond-its-years voice that’ll make you do a double take.” – KCRW.

“[Luke Marzec is] Our very own answer to Teddy Swims” – Daniel Pascoe, BBC Introducing.

“‘Broken Promises’ is about new beginnings. It’s about jumping on a plane, going to the other side of the world, and starting afresh,” British multi-instrumentalist, producer, and singer-songwriter Luke Marzec explains about his luminous new single which blends raw reflection and hopeful renewal over warm analog textures and plaintive vocals which KCRW highlighted as “rich, booming, wise-beyond-its-years voice that’ll make you do a double take.” The track feels both bright and cathartic and continues to build momentum for Marzec’s debut album, “Something Good Out Of Nothing”, set for release on August 15, 2025 via Swift Half Records. He adds, “And although I know that to confront the issues in your life – to learn from your mistakes and to live a better life – I know that that requires introspection and to work on yourself, and it’s a long and steady road, but there’s another part of me that thinks… Sometimes it might just be your surroundings. Maybe you can get bored. Maybe when you’re bored, you end up not living properly, and you end up making mistakes, and accidentally just being a slightly shitter version of yourself. But, if you live life with adventure… if you do jump on that plane, go to the other side of the world, experience a new place, and get excited by life again; maybe that really could be the catalyst that will get you to be excited about life, to smell the roses, and to take life by the horns, and ultimately become a better you. Life really is an adventure.”

That spirit of emotional honesty and fresh perspective shines on “Broken Promises.” Singing “Broken promises end in pain / Just remember / Don’t repeat the same mistakes time and time again,” Marzec turns personal farewells into a modern hymn about letting go of what no longer serves us and finding the courage to start again. “I could see a couple of lost friends not knowing their way, and leading others astray with them,” he adds. “This is a song about new beginnings, leaving the past behind and looking forward to a better day.”

Arriving hot on the heels of “Space To Be Free” (a slow-burning anthem inspired by economic inequality and the vanishing spaces that make life meaningful), “Broken Promises” shifts focus from systemic forces to personal reckonings. Where “Space To Be Free” imagined collective liberation, “Broken Promises” invites listeners into an intimate story of fractured bonds, painful lessons, and the promise of brighter tomorrows.

Both songs are taken from Marzec’s solo debut, “Something Good Out of Nothing”, which was conceived in two distinct halves: Side A, released digitally earlier this year which explored memory and nostalgia, while Side B leans into themes of resistance and possibility. This unique release strategy allowed each side to stand on its own before coming together in a full-length LP – showcasing Marzec’s signature blend of soul-rooted songwriting, richly layered instrumentation, and experimental production.

Marzec’s music is steeped in contradiction — analog and digital, political and intimate, timeless and modern. His previous singles, including “Growing Up With You” and “I Can’t Get You Out of My Mind,” (which KCRW lauds as “proper, classic sounds comin’ atcha from England’s Wye Valley”) and his work as a collaborator spans a wide range of artists including Maverick Sabre, VC Pines, Jazzanova, and Johannes Brecht on the widely appreciated Voicing Something—remixed by Adriatique.

With a background in classical and jazz training (Royal College of Music, Trinity Conservatoire), and current work as a member of modular synth-jazz trio Lazy H and the Loose Cables, Marzec has built a singular voice that bridges experimental production and soul-rooted songwriting. His jam session series Headroom has become a fixture in London’s underground music scene, showcasing some of the capital’s top electronic and jazz talent.

With “Broken Promises”, Marzec underscores the emotional heart at the center of his work: a belief in music’s power to heal, uplift, and remind us that every ending can be the start of something good.

We Speak Music

Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’

Published

21 hours ago

April 17, 2026

Don Reed

Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.

‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.

The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.

The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:

Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”

About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.

We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”

The album and full-length film will be released on the 5^th of June on Monotreme Records.

Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.