RAYE Announces Debut Album & Shares Two New Songs

Multi-platinum global star RAYE announces her long-awaited debut album, My 21st Century Blues, set to release on February 3rd, 2023 via Human Re Sources / The Orchard. Pre-order for the album begins today, which will include digital and physical copies.

The news is ceremoniously bookended with the double single release of "Escapism.," featuring 070 Shake, and "The Thrill Is Gone.," along with RAYE's upcoming performance tomorrow on the critically acclaimed British show "Later... with Jools Holland."

The magnitude around My 21st Century Blues is rightfully profound as it will be the first time the prolific, hitmaking songwriter puts out her own body of work. Journaled throughout her almost decade long career, these songs, including "Escapism." and "The Trill Is Gone.," have stuck beside the 24-year-old artist after everything that she's been through.

RAYE shares:

"My 21st Century Blues. My debut album. My ugly complex beautiful mosaic formed from broken pieces of glass from the last 7 years of my life. My medicine, my anxieties and traumas, my unfiltered thoughts. This music accompanied me through my bluest blues, crafted unapologetically and fearlessly with love and tears, and now I can only hope it might provide the same medicine it did for me, for those who choose to listen. I can't believe it is really happening. My first album."

"'Escapism.' is about running away from reality as fast as you possibly can. Going out alone, ignoring everybody who has your best interest at heart, chasing a maze of smoke and mirrors because clarity is bitterly intimidating. When you're at your lowest of lows, it's like survival mode mind numbing running from real life because it's not something you want to see. Sonically large and dramatic, something to accompany this feeling, to get lost to, and maybe you might find some healing inside of it, like I did."

"'The Thrill is Gone.' is the story of the dying spark. I became boring and predictable, and he became cold and dismissive. I captured this as a live recording, real raw vocals, no autotune, live instrumentation, recorded together in Jimmy Valentine's gorgeous, 'frozen in time' studio in Los Angeles. The song was written some years back, and always held a place in my heart."

Listen to the new single here: