The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast · Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey

PEL Presents NEM#248: Lande Hekt: Lucky to Be Indie

·1 hr 11 min·5 clips

Lande Hekt explains how driving home after tour inspired her song 'Coming Home' with its profound sense of familiarity.

Mark Lintonmeyer of Nakedly Examined Music interviews Lande Hekt, a Devon-based British singer-songwriter who started punk group Muncie Girls at 17 and has since released four solo albums alongside her band work. The episode follows Nakedly Examined Music's format of listening to and discussing specific songs in sequence. The conversation opens on Gay Space Cadets, her most-streamed solo song, from the 2022 album House Without a View. Hekt traces her career arc: Muncie Girls formed in 2011, toured extensively across Europe (where they were particularly popular in Germany and Belgium), released six EPs before dissolving in 2020. Hekt's solo work began in 2019, accelerated through COVID isolation, and has now produced four albums. They discuss the new song Coming Home from Lucky Now: Hekt wrote it while preparing to move back to her hometown and draws on the specific sensation of coming off the motorway and feeling profound familiarity, as well as memories of the end-of-tour drive back to Devon with Muncie Girls after weeks on the road. She describes layering her own harmonies and adding a deep octave harmony from friend Sam Bedford of Perfect Binding to create a group warmth that mirrors the song's communal emotional subject. Lintonmeyer draws connections to Robyn Hitchcock and Squeeze's harmonic approach. The conversation continues with 80 Days of Rain from the 2021 album Going to Hell and Learn in School from the Muncie Girls album From Kaplan To, examining how her writing has evolved from post-punk to more personal indie introspection. The tone is thoughtful, music-literate, and intimate. The audience is independent music fans, especially those interested in British indie and punk history.

As heard by us

A songcraft-heavy conversation where distortion, layering, and live choices matter as much as the lyrics.

Landi Hecht comes through here on the practical side of making songs: British punk roots in Muncie Girls, solo albums, and the small shifts that happen when a guitar part is layered instead of left raw.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a songwriter to unpack one riff until it exposes the whole arrangement.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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