Kelsey Lu

Kelsey Lu, an American singer and cellist active since 2016, returns to Manchester with a new album, So Help Me God, at New Century Locker. The bill includes a support act.

Kelsey Lu is an American singer and cellist who has been active since 2016. The debut album, Blood, released in 2019, is a baroque record built around the cello, moving between the sacred and the sensual. The music is pop, rock and indie. The new album, So Help Me God, was produced by Lu together with Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman, with Oli Jacobs handling the mix, and is issued through Dirty Hit.

Guests on the ten-track record include Sampha, Kamasi Washington, Lady Jess and Kim Gordon. Lu has described the album as a reckoning rather than a healing record, one that confronts parts of the self that had been set aside. Its origins lie partly in a 2020 residency, when the cello Lu had owned for twenty years cracked just as the pandemic began to close borders and halt travel.

New Century Locker is a Manchester venue that hosts concerts and shows. The evening pairs Lu with a support act and suits listeners drawn to cello-led songwriting and to the pop, rock and indie side of the music.