Last month, Tricky collaborator Francesca Belmonte announced her debut album, Anima, will be released on the trip-hop icon’s imprint False Idols, which he launched in 2013 with the support of German label iK7. As befitting anything Tricky endorses — “As soon as people hear this album they’ll understand why I say this,” he said of his Belmonte endorsement — the first listen of “Are You” reveals it to be a smoky waft of string beds and breakstep beats, with Belmonte’s whispered croons floating above.
“‘Are You’ is about whatever you want it to be,” Belmonte tells Billboard. “To me it’s about people’s internal struggles, a sketch of the way one can see the world and the discomfort one can feel in it. We have to have compassion for one another because we are living in exciting but strange and disconnected times. People who feel overwhelmed, sad, awkward, devastated, numb, odd, unreal… This is a torch for them.”
Listen to the song below. Anima arrives June 2.