ALA.NI - Shares new Single + Video "Summer Meadows"
Following the spellbinding return of “Something You Said” in May, British-born, Paris-based artist ALA.NI today releases her vibrant new single, “Summer Meadows” — a sun-drenched celebration of the season’s arrival, and the second taste from her forthcoming album.
Rhythmically rich, “Summer Meadows” blends ALA.NI’s delicate vocals with warm brass arrangements and deep contrabass tones. Drawing inspiration from Jamaican carnival and the nostalgia of winter daydreams, the track captures the joy and longing for sunshine.
“I definitely wrote this one under my duvet, wishing for sunshine,” says ALA.NI. “It was December 2023, and mentally, I was back in Jamaica.” The track features collaborator Clément Petit on cello — playing in place of traditional contrabass — and a radiant horn section by Okiel McIntyre, a musician ALA.NI met while living in Jamaica. “I needed someone who knew what Caribbean sunshine feels like. I called him out of the blue—and he just happened to be flying into Paris to play with The Skatalites a few days later, so I grabbed him.”
The accompanying video is as evocative as the track itself — made entirely from rare archive footage of Trinidad Carnival in 1959. Watch it HERE.
Co-produced once again with Petit (Asynchrone, Roseaux), the single expands the genre-fluid sound introduced with “Something You Said” — where jazz, bossa nova, and calypso flow together with ease — with “Summer Meadows” bringing a playful sense of groove and storytelling to the fore.
Both tracks mark a new chapter in ALA.NI’s creative evolution, shaped by personal transformation and a deep connection to place. Written after two and a half years living across Barbados, Grenada (where her parents grew up), and Jamaica, they carry the warmth and colour of that extended journey — one that brought her renewed clarity and creative freedom. sense of self and artistic clarity.
Since debuting with the critically acclaimed You & I in 2016 — a self-produced set of exquisitely restrained torch songs that earned her a performance on Later… with Jools Holland — ALA.NI has steadily carved a singular path through contemporary music. Her 2020 follow-up ACCA, composed almost entirely using layered vocals and beatbox textures, expanded her sonic palette and brought collaborators like LaKeith Stanfield and Iggy Pop into her orbit. But even as she’s shared stages and studios with artists as diverse as Mary J. Blige, Andrea Bocelli, Chassol, and Jon Batiste, ALA.NI has remained resistant to categorization — an artist guided more by intuition and narrative than by genre.
ALA.NI will perform at Jazz à la Villette in Paris on September 6, with more European dates to follow.
