We Speak Music

Luke Marzec releases warm soulful universally resonant anthem ‘Space To Be Free’

Published

1 year ago

June 20, 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.

“The best things in life cost nothing but time and space. Yet somehow, those are the very things we’re being priced out of,” says British multi-instrumentalist, producer, and singer-songwriter Luke Marzec about his new single ‘Space To Be Free’. The new track serves a dual purpose of continuing his buzzworthy momentum, as well as kicking off Side B of his debut album ‘Something Good Out of Nothing’. A unique release strategy in which he released the first half of his album independent of its critically hailed flipside (which was released digitally on March 26), this continuation deepens the album’s exploration of modern life, memory, and meaning. The full album will be released on vinyl, LP and re-introduced digitally with new artwork on August 18 via Swift Half Records.

A slow-burning, soulful anthem rooted in protest and poetic clarity, ‘Space To Be Free’ channels Marzec’s reflections on the U.K.’s economic inequality, digital alienation, and the quiet joys that capitalism often erodes (community, creativity, and stillness). Inspired by the classic sounds of soul and R&B and Bob Marley’s universal message of unity amidst the stark realities of present-day life in the UK, Marzec fuses warm analog textures, soulful vocals, and experimental production into a track that’s both deeply personal and universally resonant. “I started writing this song years ago, back when Theresa May was still in office,” he says. “Even then, I was feeling how distant real power had become. And now, with the obscene wealth gaps we’re seeing — between landlords, monarchs, tech giants, and the rest of us — the idea of simply having space to breathe, to be free, feels more radical than ever. We work more than ever, we own less, and the space to create, reflect, and connect has become a luxury, but these are the things that make life meaningful, and they shouldn’t be reserved for the few. This song is about reclaiming that.”

Luke burst onto the scene with his 2018 EP ‘Chances’ which received critical acclaim from publications such as DIY and The Line Of Best Fit and over the next couple of years he released two more EPs and gained writing and production experience co-writing with artists in the UK such as Maverick Sabre, VC Pines, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Jazzanova. He also featured on Johannes Brecht’s “Voicing Something” which was remixed by Adriatique. His Spotify page now has more than 15 million listens.

Fast forward to 2025 and ‘Space To Be Free’ looks set to turn heads again, following Luke’s recent singles ‘Growing Up With You’ and ‘I Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind’. The latter jumped straight into the Official Spotify Retro Soul playlist, receiving airplay from BBC Introducing, describing him as “The UK’s answer to Teddy Swims” (Daniel Pascoe, BBC Introducing South West).

‘Space To Be Free’ explores ideas of power and where it really resides, and what is left for the common people. In a world we are told is constantly “progressing,” it is ironic that given the labour saving advances in this latest modern era, what people really want (just a bit of time and space to make, to grow, to share) is becoming more and more unattainable. We now work longer and harder than in living memory, and most of us cannot even afford a home above our heads. All we want is a bit more time and space just for our own. We are not asking a lot; and this song explains it.

Luke is also one-third of London’s experimental modular synth-jazz group Lazy H and the Loose Cables, in which he plays the tenor sax and synthesiser. The trio have gigged with London’s Kinkajous, Mark Cake, Alabaster DePlume, Plumm and FlamingGods, and they released their first album Rotary Perception on Nottingham-based label Running Circles.

Catch Luke playing live in 2025:

8^th August- The Barrel House, Totnes- ‘Something Good Out Of Nothing’ album launch.

9^th August- Boardmasters Festival, Cornwall.

We Speak Music

Col Darcy Unveils New Single ‘Pay Up’

Published

16 hours ago

August 4, 2026

Philomena Marie

Col Darcy’s ‘Pay Up’ arrives with the calm authority of an artist who has already learned that longevity is its own form of victory. The second single from ‘Redemption’, his forthcoming album, is a composed piece of independent hip-hop that places persistence, ambition and personal conviction at its centre. Rather than presenting success as spectacle, Darcy approaches it as something accumulated slowly, through experience, discipline and faith in one’s own direction.

That sense of earned perspective has been central to Darcy’s work from the beginning. As Caper, he drew national attention with ‘How Would You Like To Be Me?’, a politically charged anti-racism song whose influence eventually extended into cinema. Alongside ‘Opportunity’, the track appeared in Netflix’s A Second Chance: Rivals!, bringing Darcy’s writing to an audience well beyond the usual confines of Australian hip-hop. Yet his subsequent career has remained grounded in independence, with the acclaimed ‘Beautiful Hopeless’ further establishing his commitment to thoughtful writing and considered craft.

‘Pay Up’ continues that trajectory while revealing an artist interested in the emotional economics of perseverance. Darcy writes from the perspective of someone who has experienced the slow rewards of staying the course. The lyrics use sharp wordplay and layered metaphor to turn a familiar idea into something more personal. His delivery is particularly effective for its restraint. There is no need to overstate the message when the voice behind it sounds as though it has lived through the argument already.

The song also reflects the wider concerns of ‘Redemption’, a record shaped by travel, fatherhood, gratitude and renewed self-awareness. Much of the album was recorded in Bali, and the island’s atmosphere reportedly helped cultivate its more contemplative dimensions. That background lends ‘Pay Up’ an intriguing duality. It is a song about ambition, but not restless ambition. Its confidence feels less like hunger for external validation and more like an acceptance that the journey itself has meaning.

What emerges is a track that understands hip-hop as both music and testimony. Darcy’s influences, from Tupac Shakur and Eminem to Kendrick Lamar, belong to a lineage in which personal narrative can become social observation and self-examination can become communal language. ‘Pay Up’ honours that tradition while remaining contemporary in its presentation. As a statement of intent for ‘Redemption’, it suggests an artist who has found greater clarity without sacrificing his edge, and who understands that the most durable kind of success is the kind you build yourself.