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Feb 26, 2026 By Andy Von Pip Photography by Conor J Clarke

New German Cinema, the solo project of Fear of Men’s Jessica Weiss, has released her latest single, “Swirling Pain,” the second preview of her forthcoming debut album Pain Will Polish Me.

Following the beat-driven “My Mistake,” which featured Carson Cox of Merchandise, “Swirling Pain” moves at a slower, more glacial pace. Built on restrained production, brooding atmospherics and an intimate vocal performance, the track sits at the emotional core of the record.

Weiss describes it as the album’s centrepiece: “Swirling Pain is my favourite song on the record. It lives in that strange Kafkaesque space between longing and withdrawal, where closeness feels both necessary and dangerous at the same time. Jag, my bandmate, and I made this video when we were staying in Berlin last summer - it started off as a take on Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon from 1943 - a piece of cinema history that feels perfectly suspended from time, and really captures the fragmentation of self that comes with memory looping back on itself. We’ve stripped that back to focus on repetition, dislocation and that uneasy sense of watching yourself from the outside.”

Pain Will Polish Me arrives March 27 via Felte. To mark the release, New German Cinema will play a free London show at Sebright Arms on February 28, followed by a Brighton date at The Folklore Rooms on April 15.

Pain Will Polish Me tracklist:
01. Sub Rosa
02. Swirling Pain
03. Being Dead
04. I Become Heavy
05. Hera’s Theme I
06. Eyes
07. Water Drops
08. Hera’s Theme II
09. My Mistake
10. All That Heaven Allows
11. Pain Will Polish Me
12. Perfect Secret

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