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Jesca Hoop’s Long Wave Home spills with hope for a broken world. The seventh solo album from the California-born, Manchester-based songwriter took shape amidst a period of both personal and geopolitical upheaval. It is the first album Hoop produced by herself. Across the record’s rich and sumptuous tracks, Hoop deeply considers what it is that people owe to each other.
At the end of 2024, Hoop began mapping out what would become Long Wave Home with a focus on her own independence as an artist and working musician. “With that blank slate, I started to write.”
Then, in 2025, change came for her. Some of Hoop’s most trusted relationships began to shift considerably. “My writing opened up. I had more tension than I knew what to do with, and plenty to explore about human relationships,” Hoop says. As the songs on Long Wave Home grew from this generative state, Hoop made the choice to produce the album herself.
Hoop recorded Long Wave Home in studios around the United Kingdom. Under her careful hand, a populous, dynamic sound emerged. Hoop stares into darkness with equal warmth and precision. And the driving, mournful “Playground” bears witness to the children whose playground has been reduced to rubble. The political landscape and the interpersonal landscape flow into one another, and to be a conscious inhabitant of both requires us to question ourselves. “I don’t draw the line between a love song and a political song,” she notes.
The album settles with a delicate and powerful title track. “You’re not alone,” she sings.