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Feb 11, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Suleika Muller

French Cuban twin sisters Ibeyi (Naomi Díaz and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz) have announced a new album, Spell 31, and shared its first single, “Sister 2 Sister,” via a video for the song. In the song they teach you how to pronounce their band name. Spell 31 is due out May 6 via XL. Check out “Sister 2 Sister” below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

The duo wrote and produced all the songs on Spell 31, working again with their long-time producer Richard Russell. The album was recorded last year in London. It’s the follow-up to Ash, which came out in 2017 on XL. Spell 31 includes “Made of Gold,” a new song the duo shared last November.

Colin Solal Cardo directed the “Sister 2 Sister” video and the song samples “River,” an early single by Ibeyi.

Activist and storyteller Janaya Future Khan was commissioned to write an essay on Spell 31 and had this to say about the album in a press release: “Spell 31 casts with conviction, transmuting nihilism into sangoma, binaries into endless dualites, moral austerity into abundance. A subversive and halcyonic manifesto from queens of a sovereign land, Ibeyi occupies the liminal, the space between life and death, past and present, right and wrong, and calls for the interior revelations that create the systemic revolutions we long for.”

Spell 31 Tracklist:

1. Sangoma
2. O Inle
3. Made Of Gold (Feat. Pa Salieu)
4. Sister 2 Sister
5. Creature (Perfect)
6. Tears Are Our Medicine
7. Foreign Country
8. Lavender & Red Roses (Feat. Jorja Smith)
9. Rise Above (Feat. BERWYN)
10. Los Muertos

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