Loma announce third studio album, How Will I Live Without A Body?

"It's like a demon enters the room whenever we get together", writer, singer, and instrumentalist Emily Cross says of the struggle to bring new Loma music into the world. Following the release of their 2020 second album, Don’t Shy Away, Loma’s three members were pushed into a hiatus. In an attempt to salvage the record and the band, Cross suggested they regroup in the UK, in the tiny stone house—once a coffin-maker’s workshop—where she works as an end-of-life doula. With minimal recording gear and few instruments, Loma turned two whitewashed rooms into a makeshift studio, using a coffin woven from willow branches as a vocal booth. "Sitting in our heavy coats around a little electric radiator, we realised how much we'd missed each other—and that just being together was precious", recalls Jonathan Meiburg.

Loma’s previous album, Don’t Shy Away, was galvanised by the encouragement of Brian Eno. This time, they were inspired by another hero, Laurie Anderson, who offered a chance to work with an AI trained on her work. Meiburg sent two photos; Anderson’s AI responded with two haunting poems. "We used fragments of these poems in ‘How It Starts’ and ‘Affinity’", he says. "And then Dan noticed that one of AI-Laurie’s lines, ‘How will I live without a body?’ would be a perfect name for the album, since we’d nearly lost sight of each other in the recording process".

For How Will I Live Without A Body?’s cover art, returning collaborator Lisa Cline took inspiration from the histories of "bog people" human cadavers found naturally mummified in peat bogs.

Tracklist:

1. Please, Come In
2. Arrhythmia
3. Unbraiding
4. I Swallowed a Stone
5. How It Starts
6. Dark Trio
7. A Steady Mind
8. Pink Sky
9. Broken Doorbell
10. Affinity
11. Turnaround