Baby Queen has announced a new album, ‘I Hope You Don’t Remember Me’, and shared the single ‘Permanently Obsessed’, along with details of a UK record store tour.
The new record will be the second from the South African alt-pop star, following on from 2023’s breakthrough album ‘Quarter Life Crisis’, and is set to drop on July 24 via Insanity Records. Visit here to pre-order.
Baby Queen’s upcoming second album will feature the previously released singles ‘Word Vomit’, ‘Feel Something’ and the title track, as well as the newly dropped single ‘Permanently Obsessed’.
That song, like the album as a whole, sees the singer, real name Bella Latham, take a step away from her signature sociopolitical commentary, and instead look inwards and write from her own personal stories.
Themes include self-reckoning and heartbreak, and the album is made alongside producer Alex Casnoff and bassist Michael Shuman (Queens of the Stone Age) and drummer Carla Azar (PJ Harvey, Jack White).
Of the album, Baby Queen shared: “This is a story about love, rejection, ego and shame told by an unreliable narrator whose understanding of love is warped.”
“When I began writing for this album, I was determined to be as present as possible which meant putting down any notion of the type of song I should be creating, and simply trusting that what naturally came out of me, was what was meant for me,” the singer added. “The songs I wrote seemed to reveal more about me than about the people or relationships I was writing about.”
Baby Queen also added that the songs put a spotlight on “corners of myself I hadn’t looked at in a long time” and “truths I had long been trying to avoid”.
“The album is an emotional journey from a type of beginning to a type of end; an almost real-time description of a behavioural pattern, but in my mind (and I think on the album too), the story remains quite unresolved,” she concluded.
Of the new single, Latham said that it was borne of her “habit of idealising a lover” and her determination to overcome “self-avoidance”.
“This song is about a recurring pattern in my own behaviour that renders the identity of the lover redundant; something unhealed within me that yearns to recreate a particular dynamic.”
To celebrate the new sophomore record, Baby Queen will be embarking on a nine-date run of in-store shows at record shops across the UK.
These kick off on July 21 in Oxford, and include stops in London, Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool and more throughout the remainder of the month. Find tickets here.
Baby Queen’s in-store shows are:
JULY
21 – Truck, Oxford
22 – Rough Trade East, London
23 – Resident, Brighton
24 – Banquet – Fighting Cocks, Kingston
25 – Rough Trade, Bristol
27 – Wax & Beans, Bury
28 – Rough Trade, Liverpool
29 – Crash – Headrow House, Leeds
30 – Rough Trade – Nottingham
As well as releasing new music, Baby Queen also got fans talking recently when she featured in a video with Courtney Love, singing Geese‘s ‘Au Pays Du Cocaine’ together.
The clip came after Love revealed that while she was initially a sceptic of the New York band, but then added that her “Geese-curious [stance] turned into Geese-blossoming-appreciation”.
That collab took place after Baby Queen previously spoke about how Love supported her when she was making her debut album. She said at the time: “Everyone’s been really lovely. I’ve had the full rundown from Courtney Love per track. She’s just really supportive, and she likes to tell me which ones she doesn’t like.
“And then, you can tell which ones she’s going to like. She loves the second track ‘Kid Genius’. And then, this song called ‘Every Time I Get High’, which have a rock energy to them. And they’re very empowered. And she loves Baby Queen.”