Bristol trio Elder Island released their third studio album Hello Baby, Okay alongside the video for ‘Faster Faster’ and announced European and North American tour dates.
Featuring recent singles ‘Ordinary Love’, ‘Pink Lemon’, ‘Snapshot’ and ‘Letters’, Hello Baby, Okay marks a confident new chapter for Elder Island. Embracing a more open and emotionally direct approach to songwriting, the album marks a conscious reframing of their creative process, shaped through free-flowing jam sessions that capture the kinetic energy of their live shows.
Arriving as a counterpoint to the current moment, the record is shaped by joy, release and euphoria, drawing on the dancefloors that defined the band’s Bristol years. That influence runs through its palette, from club music and African disco 12-inches to a wide range of visual and musical references, including Picasso, Moon Safari era Air, the funk of William Onyeabor and the occasional Kylie deep cut.
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Five on Friday with Ruf DugRooted in 90s club culture, the album is threaded with lilting funk-pop guitars, hypnotic synths, intricate rhythms, and warm analogue textures, balancing emotionally charged songwriting with a sense of dancefloor momentum. At its core, Hello Baby, Okay explores moments of joy and connection, resulting in a record that feels immediate, emotionally direct and rich in worldbuilding.
That sense of worldbuilding extends beyond the music itself. Recent single videos form a cohesive visual identity around the album, drawing on surreal imagery and narrative fragments to expand the emotional tone of each track. With backgrounds in fine art, photography and graphic design, Elder Island have long paired synths, intricate rhythms and soulful vocals with a strong visual and conceptual identity.
Hello Baby, Okay opens with lead single ‘Ordinary Love’, where brooding, atmospheric textures meet a driving, garage-leaning rhythm, balancing tension and release with a sense of emotional weight. ‘Pink Lemon’ follows, shifting into warmer territory with sun-drenched soul pop, groove-led production and a sense of playful escapism.
‘Bang’ introduces a more free-flowing, instinctive energy, capturing the looseness of the band’s new writing process, while ‘White Corridor’ keeps the momentum moving with hazy, gliding electronics. ‘Snapshot’, the album’s third single, delivers the band’s most direct love song to date, built around interlocking percussion, minimalist repetition and a soft, emotive lift.
The energy builds with ‘Faster’, one of the record’s most immediate dancefloor moments, where uptempo rhythms and a sense of nostalgia lean towards a disco pulse, giving it a loose, late night feel. ‘Broken Melody’ brings things back into a more atmospheric space, with Katy Sargent’s dreamlike vocal sitting within lush, cinematic production.
Later, ‘Letters’ unfolds at a slower pace, expansive and introspective, driven by layered instrumentation and a steady, chugging rhythm that evokes a sense of movement and distance. The penultimate track ‘Bigger Than Us’ continues that tone, pairing brooding textures with a reflective, inward looking mood, before ‘Inner Light’ closes on an uptempo, disco leaning note that brings the record full circle.
Since forming in 2013, the trio, Katy Sargent, Luke Thornton and David Havard, have built a distinctive catalogue, from early EPs Elder Island (2014) and Seeds in Sand (2016) to their acclaimed albums The Omnitone Collection (2019) and Swimming Static (2021), earning support from BBC Radio 6 Music along the way. In that time, they have cultivated a devoted global following, drawn in by their immersive, shape-shifting live shows, taking them from London’s Roundhouse and Printworks to New York’s Bowery Ballroom, LA’s El Rey Theatre, and festivals including Latitude, Lost Village and Love Saves The Day, while continuing to blur the line between electronic and live performance.
Earlier this year, Elder Island returned to the stage with sold-out intimate shows in London and Bristol, offering fans a first listen to the new material. Since then, the band have announced a global run of headline dates across the UK, Europe and North America, taking in some of the world’s most iconic venues including London’s KOKO, New York’s Music Hall of Williamsburg and Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre.
With Hello Baby, Okay, Elder Island built on their foundations while stepping into a more open and instinctive creative space, continuing to blur the line between electronic and live music, and reinforcing their position as one of the UK’s most quietly influential acts.
LIVE TOUR DATES: TICKET LINK
UK & Ireland
29 Aug – Lincolnshire, Lost Village
21 Oct – Cardiff, The Globe
23 Oct – Dublin, Button Factory
28 Oct – Glasgow, Room 2
30 Oct – Leeds, Belgrave Music Hall
31 Oct – Manchester, Band On The Wall
04 Nov – Brighton, Chalk
05 Nov – London, KOKO
06 Nov – Bristol, The Prospect Building
Europe
17 Nov – Amsterdam, Melkweg
18 Nov – Hamburg, Gefährlich
19 Nov – Berlin, Kesselhaus
20 Nov – Cologne, Luxor
North America
19 Sep – Vancouver, The Pearl
20 Sep – Seattle, Neumos
22 Sep – Portland, Wonder Ballroom
24 Sep – San Francisco, Bimbo’s 365 Club
25 Sep – Los Angeles, El Rey Theatre
26 Sep – Las Vegas, The Dustland
29 Sep – Detroit, Gothic Theatre
01 Oct – Chicago, Lincoln Hall
02 Oct – Detroit, El Club
03 Oct – Toronto, Lee’s Palace
05 Oct – Montréal, Théâtre Fairmount
06 Oct – Boston, Brighton Music Hall
08 Oct – Brooklyn, Music Hall Of Williamsburg
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