Sophie Ellis-Bextor shares new album ‘HANA’

Sophie Ellis-Bextor shares her brand new seventh studio album ‘HANA’, which includes the recently released tracks ‘Breaking The Circle’, ‘Everything is Sweet’ and ‘Lost in the Sunshine’ alongside new focus track ‘Hearing in Colour’, and is out now via Cooking Vinyl. 
 
‘HANA’ was made with long-time collaborator and friend Ed Harcourt. It is their third in a trilogy of records, with each stemming around the thematic frame of a location. The collaboration began in 2014 with the critically and commercially successful ‘Wanderlust’, which was inspired by Eastern Europe, and continued in 2016 with ‘Familia’, inspired by Latin America. New album ‘HANA’, which Harcourt describes as “kaleidoscopic joy”, is inspired by East Asia and began with the album track ‘Tokyo’ and Sophie’s first trip to Japan pre-pandemic in 2020. The title references the Japanese word for ‘blossom’, giving an early introduction to the glorious alternative pop record. 
 
Opening with the escalating synth loop of ‘A Thousand Orchids’, ‘HANA’ features ‘Reflections’, a track about the passing of time partly influenced by ABBA, the album’s emotional centre ‘Until The Wheels Fall Off’ beautifully inspired by her late step-father, and one of Sophie’s favourite tracks ‘We’ve Been Watching You’, which is the quirky album closer about aliens. The album launches today with focus track ‘Hearing in Colour’, which Sophie say is “inspired by synaesthesia, when your senses come to you in different ways so you might see shapes when you hear music, or associate colours with days of the week. I’m curious about this and it makes me think of how alert your senses are when you fall in love. This song is the story of love giving you that experience.”

Earlier this year, Sophie performed her first single from the new album ‘Breaking The Circle’ and her hit single ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ as well as a cover of Madonna’s ‘Open Your Heart’ alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra for an exclusive BBC Radio 2 Piano Session for Radio 2 and on BBC Sounds.