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Oct 26, 2023 By Mark Redfern

London trio Girl Ray have shared a new song, “Hurt So Bad,” which was recorded with Al Doyle and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip. It follows Prestige, a new album they released in August via Moshi Moshi. Listen to it below.

Girl Ray are Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell, and Sophie Moss.

The band collectively had this to say about the song in a statement on Bandcamp: “‘Hurt So Bad’ was written during the pandemic, when I was working on writing our third album and still deciding what the feel of it would be. Initially I thought that a more electronic/house inspired sound would be a good fit for us, and with ‘Give Me Your Love’ and ‘Hurt So Bad’ demoed, we visited Al Doyle and Joe Goddard’s studio near Brick Lane to flesh them out. They were a great match for the songs, and we loved playing with their mountains of rare synths. Although our album ended up being more live, I think you can still hear the beginnings of our disco inspiration in this track.”

Ben H Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, MIA, Belle & Sebastian) produced Prestige.

The album includes “Everybody’s Saying That,” a new song Girl Ray shared in February via a music video (it was one of our Songs of the Week). In 2021, the trio shared the album’s closing track, “Give Me Your Love,” which was produced by Joe Goddard and Al Doyle from Hot Chip and was also one of our Songs of the Week. When Prestige was announced in April they shared another new song from it, “Hold Tight,” via an amusing music video. “Hold Tight” was again one of our Songs of the Week. May saw the release of the album’s next single, “Up,” once again one of our Songs of the Week. Then shared another new song from it, “Love Is Enough,” via a music video featuring the band dressed in black suits performing the song by the River Thames in London.

Also in 2021, they shared a cover of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2001 song “Murder on the Dancefloor,” via a music video.

The trio also took part in our 20th Anniversary Covers of Covers album, covering HAIM’s “Another Try.”

Their previous recent album, Girl, came out in 2019 via Moshi Moshi.

In 2020 we posted a mini-documentary on Girl Ray, where we visited their home studio. Watch the James Loveday-directed film here.

Also read our My Firsts interview with the band from 2019.

Girl was the follow-up to their 2017-released debut album, Earl Grey (it was our Album of the Week and #3 on our Top 15 Debut Albums of 2017 list).

Read our Pleased to Meet You interview with Girl Ray and check out our exclusive photo shoot with the band.

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