Kevin Bronson on April 13th, 2021

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Lucy Dacus has announced that her third album, “Home Video,” will arrive June 25 via Matador Records, describing it as a diaristic exploration of her formative years in Richmond, Va.

Dacus’ melt-your-heart video for the single “Hot & Heavy” gets right to the center of the album. It’s set at the city’s Byrd Theatre and features a cast of friends and family. “I knew I wanted to include some of the home video footage that my dad took of me while I was growing up,” Dacus says. “I wanted to visualize the moment when you first reflect on your childhood, which I think can also be the moment that childhood is over.

“For me, I feel like there was a hard switch when I started releasing music, when my identity went from being a personal project to something publicly observed and reflected. I asked my family (shoutout to my grandma) and some of my closest friends to be extras because they’re the people that knew me before that switch. I may have dropped out of film school, but I still love making movies and had a really fun time directing this one.”

As for the song, Dacus says: “I thought I was writing ‘Hot & Heavy’ about an old friend, but I realized along the way that it was just about me outgrowing past versions of myself. So much of life is submitting to change and saying goodbye even if you don’t want to. Now whenever I go to places that used to be significant to me, it feels like trespassing the past. I know that the teen version of me wouldn’t approve of me now, and that’s embarrassing and a little bit heartbreaking, even if I know intellectually that I like my life and who I am.”

||| Watch: The video for “Hot & Heavy”

||| Also: Stream “Thumbs”

||| Live: Lucy Dacus plays the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Sept. 24 and the Observatory on Sept. 25, supported by Bachelor each night. Tickets on sale at 10 a.m. Friday.