As KUČKA, Laura Jane Lowther makes moody electronic music that flickers with angst and glee. After breaking through as a background vocalist on LongLiveA$AP and cutting her teeth on the Perth, Australia live circuit, she made her name as a singer for club-ready rap and dance tracks. Her diaphanous voice can slink through or float over a mix, a quality that has landed Lowther placements on madcap beats by SOPHIE and Flume, and on mellower arrangements by Mount Kimbie and Andrei Eremin. On features, many of which are uncredited, KUČKA’s singing tends to function more as a texture than as a centerpiece—but in her solo work, she pushes against that reputation.“Absolutely no vocal features,” she declared as she prepared Wrestling, her 2021 debut album. The mostly self-produced record showcased the anguished romantic beneath the ethereal voice, its misty and brooding beats bringing out a sensuality and tension often muted in KUČKA’s guest spots. She sounded less like a manic pixie dream girl—or an “alien, sexy space lady” as regular collaborator Flume once more colorfully described her timbre—and more like a person navigating life’s ups and downs. Follow-up Can You Hear Me Dreaming? has a similarly corrective mission, showcasing KUČKA’s takes on synth-pop, R&B, and dance while emphasizing narrative. If Wrestling was a waking dream, this album is a lucid one.
KUČKA again handles most of the production, assisted by Flume, sauna6, and pnkblnkt. The beats vary in style but generally feature crisp drums, crystalline melodies, and lots of negative space. The minimalism somewhat recalls Jessy Lanza and early SBTRKT, but KUČKA’s low ends aren’t as deep, nor are her synth melodies as syncopated. As an arranger, she’s more concerned with clarity than propulsion. Even the brisker songs feel inviting, their breezy arrangements as beckoning as a body pillow.
Leaning into this cozy mode, KUČKA structures these songs around stories of intimacy and romance. Opener “Wasting Time (til the end of the world)” centers on a fault that emerges in a relationship as a pair tries to outrun the apocalypse. “We got the music blasting along the motorway/But nowhere left to go/Why can’t you understand?/Look at me I’m serious,” KUČKA sings with irritation. The shuffling garage beat ups the tension; the couple might bottom out before the world does. Other lovers mentioned across the album fare better. The earnest narrator of chippy single “Cry Cry Cry” is brought to tears by the accepting gaze of her partner. And “Heaven,” a minimal R&B track flecked with icy synth melodies and chimes, turns vacation planning into seduction. “Nothing but our sweat and our own skin/We don’t need a week on an island,” KUČKA sings, her voice both pleading and affirmative.
She’s not a theatrical singer or a powerhouse, but she understands the inherent drama of a voice stretching or warbling even slightly, and uses such flourishes to make her characters personable. On “Wedding,” a song about being a witness to a shitty marriage, her smug delivery doubles as homegirl intimacy. “Every time he lets you down/On your face I know,” she laments in solidarity with her miserable bestie. Highlight “Not There,” an ode to an absent paramour, offers pure longing. “There’s a craving/In my bones/Subtle aching/When you’re not there,” she sings, stretching “bones” into four wounded syllables.
A few concepts don’t congeal. “Can’t Help It” attempts a sarcastic takedown of control freaks (or is it insecure men?), but is tanked by a bland hook and a generic beat that sounds like a throwaway from AlunaGeorge’s Body Music. Flume team-up “One More Night” also stumbles, its mix of heavy bass and airy vocals a retread of their past work. The obvious lyrics don’t help, either: “I’m your addiction now/You can’t resist when I’m around,” KUČKA sings, overexplaining an already cliché metaphor. Both songs sound like the kind of plug-and-play fare she’s trying to distance herself from.
“Communal Reverie” and “Gross Body,” tracks featuring her new band PESH, point in more promising directions. For both, KUČKA cedes the mic to her bandmate and wife Dillon Howl, who performs charged spoken word. The buzzy, growling beats practically crackle with energy, the chaos barely tamed by Howl’s witchy and tender verses. Though the songs slot into the overall vision of Can You Hear Me Dreaming?, there is a feral quality to them that could further complicate the image of KUČKA as a twee singer. Imagine it: KUČKA making rage beats for rap sparkplugs Cochise and OsamaSon, or droning trap for Kim Gordon and Fever Ray, or angry industrial for herself. Sounds far-fetched, but there’s a craving.
