Rosie Lowe has unveiled beautiful new song Mango, from her second album ‘YU’.
With empowering new single ‘Pharoah’ currently playlisted on 6Music, Lowe has confirmed additional live shows at Rough Trade East, The Great Escape, All Points East festival and Giles Peterson’s We Out Here, on top of an October headline date at London’s Village Underground on October 23rd.
Cosmic, dreamy and sensual, ‘Mango’ turns the Adam & Eve story on its head: rather than depicting a tale of temptation and sin, here is Eve – in charge, and in control – attempting to persuade Adam to give into her needs instead. With a live visual for the track also released today, ‘Mango’ is another fascinating glimpse of Rosie Lowe’s second album, ‘YU’: a record that – amongst other things – asks questions about love, faith, and the compatibility between the two.
‘YU’ already has the feel of a defining moment for Rosie Lowe: musically, but emotionally too. Produced alongside Dave Okumu (The Invisible, Grace Jones, Jessie Ware), it’s a work that casts Lowe – a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, radio DJ and trainee psychotherapist – as a true polymath, who has gathered an extraordinary cast around her. With guests ranging from Jay Electronica, Jamie Woon, Jamie Lidell, Kwabs and Jordan Rakei to the leading lights across the contemporary jazz and dance scenes (Sam Shephard, Gwilym Gold), at the centre of it all is a woman placing herself under extraordinarily intimate analysis.
As much as it explores new sounds and stories, ‘YU’ also sees Rosie Lowe look back on her life, and all those things that make ‘YU’. She grew up as one of six kids in rural Devon, having learnt the saxophone young (which she still plays and adores) and been exposed to a broad mix of soul, jazz, funk and R&B; influences which come to glorious fruition on her second album, where inspiration ranges from Childish Gambino, Gabrielle Garzon Montano and Erykah Badu to childhood heroes like Ella Fitzgerald or Charlie Parker. Lowe realised early on, too, that love was a fragile, difficult thing, her parents splitting up when she was young resulting in living between homes. Time spent at Goldsmiths and later working behind the scenes at big labels reinforced Rosie’s need to operate outside of the regular rules (whether in relationships, or making music). Her debut record, the acclaimed ‘Control’, saw Lowe stride out alone, tackling politics, feminism and the self. ‘YU’, in contrast, “is about other. I wanted to write about my experience of sharing my life with another as a lover, friend and partner.”
Despite its richly classic feel, what’s emerged on ‘YU’ is an album on thoroughly modern, twenty-first-century love: its childhood myths and more pragmatic realities, its utopias and difficult weathers. Those moments when you find out how you are, who you are, and if you’re brave enough, you let it all bleed through. On her stunning second album, ‘YU’, Rosie Lowe has just done that.
May 10th || The Great Escape / Rough Trade East
June 1st || All Points East, London
June 15th || Bushstock, London
August 15th || We Out Here Festival, Cambridge
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