Anna Meredith Announces New Album 'Darling': Hear "Dusky"

It's been years since we've checked in with Scottish composer and electronic musician Anna Meredith. In recent years she's released all kinds of projects including the bumper car sound installation Bumps Per Minute: 18 Studies For Dodgems, a collaboration with the string quartet Ligeti Quartet called Nuc, and soundtracks for the movies The End We Start From and Thursday. More recently, she scored Wicker, a Sundance fantasy comedy starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, set for release Oct. 23 in the United States.

Now Meredith is ready to roll out her first pop-oriented album since 2019's FIBS. In February, she'll release her new album Darling, which she describes like so:

DARLING is a channelling of intensity, energy and euphoria. This is me making music to summon motion, tension and release, to push through my brain and my body at a time when my own world (and the world in general) feels overwhelming. My aim was to create a unique experience ultimately for myself but also for those I’m bringing along on this journey with me. I wanted to lean into a technicolour version of what my music can be, reaching for higher highs and greater twists and turns, and letting it sit with more confidence than ever before. The tracks are longer, bolder, wilder and simpler than anything that appears on my previous albums. I’ve thought a lot about balancing the meticulous level of detail in dense and complex music with the intention to be open, crafting a conduit for energy and joy.

Our first taste of the new album is "Dusky," the opening track. It's a frantic flurry of sound, full of rhythmic energy, brightly bursting synths, and the sound of regal brass letting its hair down. Meredith shared a statement on "Dusky" in particular:

I’m so proud of "Dusky" and the ambition and manifesto it sets out for the album. In many ways it’s 4 tracks in one, with each stage of the journey inhabiting its own identity, whilst setting up the reveals and rug pulls of the sections to follow. It’s got loads of the things that I love writing – polyrhythms, parpy brass, metric modulations, waily synths. A lot of the music was written around my desire to build towards a heavy chugging metal electric guitar riff for my amazing guitarist Jack Ross, and to work out the best way to arrive at that moment so that it feels both entirely right and utterly unexpected. It makes me whoop with the joy and silliness of it every time.

Listen below.