Lana Del Rey Studied Carl Jung for Her New Album
Music

Lana Del Rey Studied Carl Jung for Her New Album

It has been less than a year since Lana Del Rey released her pandemic PicsArt album, Blue Banisters, and it sounds like we may not have to wait as long as initially expected to hear its followup.

Appearing on the cover of W Magazine's latest music issue, Del Rey revealed that she has a new, yet to be named, album currently in the works. In a conversation with Gucci's creative director Alessandro Michele, the artist spoke about their collaboration on her 2018 Met Gala look and the brand's Guilty fragrance campaign, what poets are her favorites (Spoiler alert: Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman and Sylvia Plath all make the cut), dreams, what makes her happy and did a deep dive into singer-songwriter's creative process.

In the interview, Del Rey also discusses her "meditative automatic singing" approach to making music, describing an almost free association approach to songwriting, recording whatever comes to mind on her Voice Notes App that she in turn sends to composer Drew Erickson for further fleshing out. Del Rey also cites Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung as a major influence, referring to his ideas on how dreams and automatic writing can tap into the unconscious.

"[Jung] even suggests you write with your left hand if you’re right-handed, so you can see what comes up first," Del Rey explains. "Because you have to write so slowly, you might end up writing, 'Help!' Whereas with your right hand you might say, 'Today went well. I took out the garbage, I did the laundry, I did phone calls,' and then suddenly you say, 'And I really miss him. I really, really miss him.' And then you think, Oh, I just got to the heart of it."

Del Rey doesn't let too many details about the forthcoming record slip, but describes it as being "a very wordy album." She goes on to contrast the album against her 2015 record, Honeymoon, explaining that its devoid of the color references she's previously made. "For this new music, there’s none of that at all," she says. "It’s more just like: I’m angry. The songs are very conversational."

Del Rey released her single "Watercolor Eyes" earlier this year off the soundtrack to the latest season of HBO's Euphoria.

Photo via Getty/ Michael Kovac

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