#9 KUČKA
On herby Armenian bread, tangerine cocktails and secret recipe smoked meats
There’s something special about KUČKA. Ever since hearing her 2020 single ‘Ascension’, I’ve been mesmerised by the production talents of Laura Jane Lowther, as well as her voice, which slides and splinters like glass. Emerging via backing vocal work on ASAP Rocky’s LongLiveA$AP, she fast established herself as an exceptional producer and songwriter, with her 2021 debut album, Wrestling, pitting ultra cold, gleaming beatwork against that angelic voice.
Lowther grew up in the north of England before moving to Australia as a teen, later relocating to Los Angeles, and so it makes sense that her music would be hard to define and boundary-pushing as as a result. Her collaboration list counts the likes of SOPHIE, Flume and Kendrick Lamar, and she’s a total creative force, dropping fever dream visuals (that are often the work of her visual director and wife Dillon Howl).
Can You Hear Me Dreaming?, KUČKA’s second album, was released last month via LuckyMe. It has “a couple of curveballs,” she says, “all different types of sonic aesthetics. It jumps around a bit, and never quite gets dance, never quite gets pop, but thematically it’s less emotional than my last record. I tried to lean into very colourful production that feels more cartoon-like. It lends itself to fun imagery in your brain… hopefully!”
Below, we chatted about studio pick-me-ups, traditional British food and what to throw on the barbie, if you’re that way inclined.
What sort of things did you grow up eating in Liverpool?
My nan would make [Liverpudlian dish] scouse all the time. My parents weren’t particularly creative cooks, mostly because they have four kids, but my nan would make things like pork ribs, and a roast dinner every Sunday without fail. Really comforting food, because I guess it’s so cold all the time! Lots of hearty meals, very British food like potatoes and meat. We moved to Australia when I was 16, and the craziest thing there is that Christmas is in the summer, so everyone has a barbecue, or goes to the beach and eats seafood on Christmas Day, which was just bizarre to me. The seafood in Perth, where I lived, is next level.
Not to play into the Australian stereotype too much, but what sort of seafood would you throw on the BBQ?
It depends who you’re with… if you’re with true Aussies they’ll catch their own fish and stuff. I’ve got a few friends who go fishing and do that kind of thing, but for me I’d only cook fish that I buy from the supermarket! I love the beach but I like the beach just to chill.
Do you cook much yourself?
Yes. In my house it’s me and my wife Dillon, and I basically cook every night and she cleans up. It’s good because I genuinely enjoy it. There’s a point in the day where, if I’ve been working all day, it’s a treat for me to cook. I’ll put on a TV show and spend half an hour cooking. Recently I’ve been making a lot of curry. My wife is vegetarian, but I’m not, so I’ll mostly do a lot of lentils. I make a lot of vegetables and beans but with different sauces! It’s not traditional to anywhere in the world but I feel like I’ve got it to the point where the flavours are exactly how we like it. Dillon’s family are Mexican, so I’ve learnt a lot about herbs and flavours – coriander and lime, especially. Dillon’s like, ‘We need to squeeze lime on it!’ which is great, it elevates it. I’m not that adventurous in cooking, I’ve only followed a recipe once which is when I made a no-bake cake. Usually I just wing it.
I’m so glad I don’t have the gene that makes coriander taste like soap.
It would be hell! My dad thinks mango tastes like perfume. It’s the best fruit, it’s such a shame. He grew up eating very British foods, though.
Is there anywhere you've discovered while travelling that has blown your mind, or a new cuisine that you've really liked?
I went to an amazing restaurant in Mexico where we ate mole that was aged for eight years. It was really intense. It wasn’t my favourite thing I had that day, but just in terms of the depth of flavour, I would say it blew my mind. Mole is really rich even if it isn’t aged, and they put it on this plate with leaves to eat it with. It was like, how can the tiniest amount of sauce have 25 different reactions on your tongue?! Like, mmm, musty… OK?
In LA you must have really good Mexican food, too.
We do. We have a lot of food trucks, which is awesome. There’s one round the corner and it’s so cheap, you can get tacos for a couple of dollars and a burrito for $7, which is good for LA, everything is so expensive here. There’s a lot of good Chinese food here too – there’s so many cultures and people from all over the world that live here. I live close to Glendale, which borders LA and it’s got a huge Armenian population so I’ve been to a couple of Armenian restaurants that have really good food. There’s a place called Zhengyalov Hatz that serves this really herby bread [of the same name]. It’s so good, it’s all folded up with different chopped herbs in it.
If you were going out to eat for a special occasion in LA, where would you go?
There’s this one place I really wanna go to called Morihiro. It’s a Japanese place and it’s so expensive that I’ve never been able to go, I think it’s $250, if you pay $400 you can sit at the sushi bar and watch them at work. You can see them prepping all the food and they’ll have mushrooms in the window – I don’t know what they’re doing, but they display them so beautifully. They have all these salt things outside the door, sitting on the floor, that I’m very intrigued by. It looks so deluxe and you can tell they really care, they’re not just a restaurant that throws everything in the pan. One day I’ll go there, when I get a big tax rebate or something!
When you’re hard at work in the studio, do you snack on anything?
It’s not a snack, but we always make a cocktail, which is non-alcoholic but it powers us through, for sure! It’s tangerine juice and sparkling water, and there’s something about it… if I’m having a session and having a crash in the afternoon it’s like, ‘Do you want a cocktail?’ It’s super sweet, but also tangy. Perfectly tangy.
Is there a meal you’ve had that really sticks in your mind?
Dillon’s granddad smokes meat, and he’s got all these amazing spices, he’s got a recipe that he won’t tell anyone about. He makes these barbecue ribs – I don’t eat meat that often, but these are the best I’ve ever had. Seriously, I don’t know what he does! He does a lot of dehydrating, so he’ll dehydrate vegetables and grind them up. He’s got one of those boba machines, where you can seal the spices with a boba lid! Those ribs are *kisses fingers*. They’re probably not that good for you, but they’re good for the soul.
Listen to KUČKA’s Can You Hear Me Dreaming? here.
Before you go, enjoy this serving of Salt Fat Acid House-recommended tracks, hot and fresh out the oven: