Girl Ray release new single / video “Love Is Enough”

Girl Ray today release their new single, “Love Is Enough”, the fourth early look at their upcoming third album Prestige, out on 4 August 2023 via Moshi Moshi.

The grooving new alt-pop track ,“Love Is Enough”, arrives with another charming Alex Cantouris-directed music video that sees the band suit up alongside their instruments, channelling a funky disco bassline and an alluringly danceable melody in front of the city backdrop. Speaking about the accompanying video, Sophie from the band said: “The concept for the video first came from wanting to look like city finance bros. The kind of people that tear through six Elfbar vapes in a day and passive aggressively tell our assistants over the phone to make sure the cappuccino was hot by the time it got to our desks next time. We got up at 3am and went to the iconic spot right by the entrance of the Blackwall tunnel to get a view of the skyline. As the shoot went on, we thought maybe we looked like budget spies or the Blues Brothers. By 6am a guy in a small vest who looked like he’d been out all night asked if we were in an orchestra.”

Alex, the director, said: “We decided to take a more earnest approach with this video, due to the song’s subject matter. Poppy found an amazing location, and riffing off the idea that the band might actually be going to work in the city, Iris came up with the great idea to wear business attire. The costume element is of course tongue in cheek, which got us thinking we could have some fun with the intro to balance out the rest of the video’s feel. We filmed at 4am, and the monochrome qualities of the light combined with the black and white suits, and Canary Wharf as the backdrop, really gelled well together to get the look of sincerity we were aiming to achieve.”

Listen to “Love Is Enough” HERE and watch the video below.

Girl Ray also announce Club Prestige, a night of disco hits and beyond, in anticipation of their new album release. Taking place at The George Tavern in London on 21st July 2023, the club night will see the band hit the decks alongside DJ sets from Raissa Pardini and Mark and Keren McConnell (Iris’ parents), and will feature all of their favourite disco-leaning songs in the kind of setting they were fantasising about while writing the record. Tickets cost £5 and are available here.

Additionally, Girl Ray will perform a headline UK and European tour this November and December. The tour kicks off with a run of European dates before hitting the UK and Ireland for 8 shows, calling at Brighton, Bristol, Manchester and more and culminating in a London show at Village Underground on 3rd December 2023. Fans can get early access to the tour by pre-ordering the album. Tickets are available here and you can find the full tour routing below. The band will also be playing a series of instores at Rough Trade and will appear at this year’s Green Man Festival. The full tour routing is below.

Prestige was co-produced by Poppy Hankin with the Grammy Award-winning producer, Ben H. Allen (M.I.A, Gnarls Barkley, Christina Aguilera, Deerhunter) and takes the shambolic charm of their debut, Earl Grey (2017), and the indie-fied R&B of 2019’s Girl, and injects it with a booster shot of Hi-NRG eighties disco pop.

Prestige is the sound of Girl Ray reclaiming disco music as the celebration of sexuality and outsider culture it started out as. Inspired by Pose, the television drama about New York City’s queer ballroom scene in the 80s, Prestige is an escape to a fantasy clubland, it’s dancing with your friends, it’s falling in love. In fact, the overarching narrative of Prestige is love: falling in it and being afraid of getting hurt by it; being all alone and longing for it; the tensions between what it is and what you imagined it would be.

“Love Is Enough” is the fourth release from the highly anticipated album, following on from “Up”, to which Evening Standard praised its “Irresistible beat” and “instant replay factor”. The trio have also previously revealed “Everybody’s Saying That”, which Clash described as “channelling disco abandon and 70s glamour with its sweeping strings, glitzy beat, and Stevie Wonder-esque flourishes”, and “Hold Tight”, which Stereogum said was “a joyous, shimmering love song that practically explodes with good vibes.”

Girl Ray, the three-piece comprising Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss, have never been afraid of switching it up. In the space of just three albums they’ve gone from janglepop darlings to being one of the most exhilarating and original pop bands around. Making their timely return with an album of unapologetically escapist alt-pop anthems, they shape-shift again on their new album, Prestige, as they look back to the post-disco dancefloors of the early eighties with a record that feels almost subversive in its sanguinity.

Bringing their deep understanding of modern pop and the bittersweet melodies of ABBA and Kate Bush and mixing it all together with the post-punk playfulness of Orange Juice and a love of Donna Summer and Yellow Magic Orchestra, Girl Ray have come back with a life affirming celebration of the transformative power of pop music at its most glorious.

Inspired by the soundtrack to Pose and recent disco outings by Dua Lipa, Kylie and Jessie Ware, when the world shut down, the band’s songwriter Poppy found solace daydreaming about the same things she had when she was younger: escaping to her fantasy clubland and dancing with her friends and falling in love. Prestige’s epic album closer, “Give Me Your Love”, which Gigwise called a “steel-drum infused summer bop”, is a party anthem lost to a time when no one except the Conservative government was partying. The seven and a half minute single was produced by Al Doyle and Joe Goddard from Hot Chip, and is a yearning love letter to classic house and euphoric electro that sounds like Arthur Baker remixing The Raincoats. It’s what Girl Ray imagine might have been playing on a Saturday night in the eighties as they checked their coats at Paradise Garage. It’s pop music as pure fantasy.

Girl Ray Tour Dates:

04/08 – London, Rough Trade East
09/08 – Nottingham, Rough Trade Nottingham
10/08 – Bristol, Rough Trade Bristol
17/08 – Brecon Beacons, Green Man Festival
12/11 – Amsterdam, Paradiso
13/11 – Hamburg, Aalhaus
14/11 – Copenhagen, Ideal Bar
16/11 – Berlin, Marie-Antoinette
17/11 – Brussels, Witloof Bar
20/11 – Paris, Boule Noire
21/11 – Brighton, Patterns
22/11 – Bristol, Fleece
24/11 – Manchester, The Soup Kitchen
25/11 – Glasgow, Room 2
26/11 – Dublin, The Workmans Club
28/11 – Leeds, Belgrave Music Hall
29/11 – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
03/12 – London, Village Underground

Prestige – released on 4 August 2023 via Moshi Moshi
Pre-order / pre-save here

Tracklist:

Intro
True Love
Up
Everybody’s Saying That
Love Is Enough
Hold Tight
Begging You Now
Easy
Tell Me
Wanna Dance
Space Song
Give Me Your Love