Q&A: Laney Tripp on Healing, Swamps and the Making of ‘Angel’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
FLORIDA-BORN AND LOS ANGELES-BASED SINGER-SONGWRITER LANEY TRIPP has always made music that exists somewhere between water and air: fluid, atmospheric and alive with emotion. Her sound blurs the lines between ambient folk, slowcore and dream pop, creating a sonic world that feels both deeply intimate and otherworldly. With her latest album Angel, Tripp dives even deeper into that hazy in-between, weaving tender self-reflection and lush, organic textures into a body of work that feels like both a diary and a dream.
Across Angel, Tripp explores themes of longing, acceptance, and self-understanding. Each song unfolds like a journal entry — a quiet moment of reckoning that grows into something vast and cinematic. Her Florida roots ripple throughout the record’s “swampy” soundscape, grounding its ethereal tone in something tangible and human. It’s the kind of record that asks to be felt as much as it’s heard, inviting listeners to sit in their own stillness and let it wash over them.
Following the success of her previous releases, including over 2.5 million Spotify streams and a recent TV placement on Paramount+’s School Spirits, Tripp has built a reputation for creating music that lingers. After three consecutive appearances at SXSW and a standout set at Playground Festival 2025, she returns with Angel as her most personal and transportive project yet.
LUNA: Angel feels like an incredibly intimate and atmospheric project. What was the emotional or creative seed that sparked the album?
TRIPP: This album wasn’t really planned per se. It just kind of unfolded one song at a time over the course of a few years. Each song arrived in its own moment, sometimes when I was finally still enough to process what I’d been feeling, but usually when I was still in the thick of it and felt anything but settled. It grew out of a period of deep self-reflection — navigating new kinds of feelings, anxious attachment, uncertainty, and change — and slowly became this record about really looking at myself (maybe truly for the first time), seeing what’s going on in there (hey buddy! you doing okay?), feeling everything, and eventually learning to let go.
LUNA: Your music has always felt deeply personal—how did you approach storytelling differently on Angel compared to your earlier releases?
TRIPP: During that time, whenever a new song felt “ready,” I’d show it to my band and we’d play it at whatever the next show was. It was a fun era and a different process for me than how I’d made music in the past. With Angel, I got to live inside the songs for a long time before recording them — testing them out live, seeing how they felt in the air, and then eventually recording (most of) them live too. It made the whole thing feel (mostly) organic. There was already so much familiarity when it came time to record. It feels like this album is truly a piece of me, from the depths of my soul. Not to be dramatic : )
LUNA: You’ve described the album as having a “swampy” soundscape. Can you tell us more about how your Florida roots shaped the textures and mood of this record?
TRIPP: I think the “swamp” thing is as much a play on my Florida roots as it is a reflection of how I was feeling inside for so long. I try my best to balance those heavy, mucky feelings with feelings of calm and whimsy, and that’s really shaped the textures and mood of the record. I want it to feel like you’re sprinting down the beach at night in darkness or wading waist-deep in murky water while simultaneously floating in the ocean, taking a nap on the beach, or laying in grass under the shade of a good tree.
You’ve just caught a keeper redfish and you’ve got the sunburn to show for it. You’re out on the river as a thunderstorm rolls in and the rain feels like needles as you’re running the skiff back to shore.
LUNA: Sonically, Angel sits somewhere between ambient folk, slowcore, and dream pop—a space that feels both grounding and otherworldly. What artists or sounds influenced this album’s palette?
TRIPP: A lot of this record sits between two worlds that have often influenced my music. One on the more melodic and whimsical side — John Denver, Andy Shauf, Adrianne Lenker — songs that are telling stories, satisfying chord progressions, delicate, and full of little playful touches. The other leans ambient and untethered — Animal Collective, Gia Margaret, Hanna Stretton, Lovelier Other — music that flirts with discomfort but stays rooted in folky, acoustic strums or some sort of spacey synth that makes you feel like you’re floating. Songwriting-wise, I love finding that balance: melodies that resolve, textures that wander, and little moments of edge vs whimsy sprinkled in.
LUNA: Your songwriting often captures fleeting emotions and quiet moments. When you’re writing, how do you decide what feels ready to share versus what remains just for you?
TRIPP: I’m naturally a pretty private person, and it’s historically been at times difficult for me to express how I’m feeling, especially while I’m still in it (cancer moon and cancer rising, for whom it may concern). When it comes to music, something about putting ambiguous feelings into songs makes it feel less scary. There’s a kind of play-pretend element happening when singing songs — like I get to step outside of myself and present a feeling as a little world, and don’t necessarily need to know exactly what those feelings are or mean yet. Because of that, almost nothing is off-limits. If a song feels honest and I’m excited to sing it, I’ll play it at the next show — even if it’s unfinished. Those are often the songs that feel the most alive to me.
LUNA: You’ve performed at SXSW for three consecutive years and have been building a reputation for your immersive live sets. How does performing live influence your creative process or the way you approach recording?
TRIPP: I love playing songs live. It still makes me nervous, and I am still my own worst critic, but after years of putting out music and playing shows, I’m finally having more fun than ever. It feels good to be at a new level of comfort with myself, my guitar-playing, and being vulnerable.
Though these songs are for myself, performing them reminds me of why I make music in the first place — it’s a means for connection, processing, and release. As I’ve honed in on these feelings, it’s become more clear to me that I just want to write and record songs that feel good to play and sing, and I want to do it forever!
LUNA: What does the album title Angel represent to you, and how does it tie into the themes of the record?
TRIPP: I always knew that Angel would be the title track of the album. It came to feel like the lens through which I was seeing this chapter of my life. I guess it’s about longing, desire, and the ways we put people or ideas on a pedestal. For me, it ties into the whole record: confronting myself, exploring new feelings, letting go of shame, and learning to move through life fully present and open to connection — not tethered to any one outcome. Mostly it’s just about remembering that everything I need has always been within me. And it is within you too!
LUNA: Who helped bring Angel to life, whether musically, visually, or emotionally?
TRIPP: Angel was recorded at Susan Studio in Echo Park, Los Angeles with Jacob Cummings, my longtime collaborator and friend in music. The album cover photo was taken by my bestie, Summer Schantz. We knew we wanted to incorporate the swampy backwater feel into the visuals, so we shot the cover and a music video at my parents’ farm in south Georgia. This project is what it is because of the love and support of friends for whom I am eternally grateful!
LUNA: Looking ahead, what do you hope listeners feel when they step into the world of Angel?
TRIPP: I hope these songs offer a sense of understanding and connection. For most of my existence, I’ve carried this deep pit of loneliness in my chest (I know I’m not alone in that — kinda ironic) and music has often been one of the things to fill that void. I simply hope to be a filler of voids, near and far. A lot of the album is about yearning — for closeness, for self-connection, for peace. Sometimes we have to make decisions that lead us closer to attaining that, and I think attaining that is just remembering who we are inside and honoring that.
At the end of the day, these are all just words from my brain and my heart in an effort to answer the never-ending loop of questions circulating my noggin. They’re yours now! Make of them and take from them what you please, and thank you for listening!
