Listen to Play, a driving club-pop experience from blossoming London force, Alewya

Header image by Hendrik Schneider.

There's been an incredible amount of excitement building over dance music's next generation in the last few months, whether it's the short bursts of brilliance courtesy of 2021 breakthrough PinkPantheress, right through to long-established DJs and producers making their move with debut albums and EPs, such as DJ Seinfeld's classy Mirrors record last month.

London-based musician Alewya is someone who sits in between these two realms. 2021 isn't necessarily her breakthrough year - that acclaim probably goes to last year's pacing single Sweating - but she's really turned into a reckoning force over the last ten months, now making the move towards her debut EP Panther In Mode scheduled for release on November 18 via Because London / Virgin Music Australia. It's been a long time coming for Alewya, whose blend of rushing drum'n'bass and butter-smooth pop worms its way into your brain and doesn't leave for months on end; her last single - July's Spirit_X - being an intoxicating blend of sounds that's been stuck in rotation ever since its arrival. 

Spirit_X, however, was a just a single morsel of the evidence that points towards Alewya's presence as a blooming, forward-thinking one to watch. She was enlisted by the pioneering Little Simz for her Drop 6 EP last year, and while join Simz on her victorious tour around the UK in support of her year-best Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. She's been remixed by the infamous Honey Dijon, counts drum'n'bass/jungle pioneer Shy FX as a mentor and manager, and as mentioned, is a part of the Because Music crew, a label fabled for their prowess in unearthing the best of dance music's best.

Now, with her debut EP incoming, Alewya is sharing the next chapter of her story through her latest single, Play. Play is a song that feels synonymous with Alewya's craft and the talent captured within it, with a daring blend of rhythms and melodies by producer Busy Twist (who similarly worked on the aforementioned break-out single Sweating) blending underneath Alewya, whose vocal seems to navigate the complex production with the ease and sweatless effort that makes Alewya such a remarkable and exciting artist.

"Play is a song about my love and gratitude for pleasure and play and how it has and can unlock deeper feelings of connections," she says, bringing the emotion out of her hypnotic, yet cutting-edge vocals. "It’s overtly feminine and innately primal and most of all light and fun."

As we said in our introduction to Alewya earlier in the year, the London musician is one of the most exciting and forward-thinking musicians out there at the moment, with glory imminent on her horizon with her debut EP incoming. Panther In Mode is bound to show the heights that Alewya can reach, but until then, you can take a dive into Play below, as she reinforces her presence amongst the hallmark of UK dance music's next generation.

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