Michelle, Ayoni

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Raphael Gaultier

The band Michelle poses for a photo.

Michelle

media release: MICHELLE released their highly anticipated third album, Songs About You Specifically, on Sept. 27 via Atlantic Records and Transgressive in the UK. The album includes their previously released singles “Oontz,” “Mentos and Coke” and “Cathy” the latter of which arrived alongside an accompanying music video that lands somewhere between reality and a daydream. On Songs About You Specifically, the band members express their complicated desires, voice their regrets, and own up to their moments of selfishness by slowing down, cutting out any distractions, and fostering a sense of communal closeness that necessitated honesty. Alongside the project, the band shares the Powered By Wind music video for album focus track "Akira," featuring choreography from band member Emma Lee.

Alongside the arrival of their third full-length project, MICHELLE are announcing their 2025 headline North American tour that will follow their fall tour launching next month. The band will be kicking off this tour on January 30 in Toronto with stops in Chicago, Nashville, Atlanta, and Washington D.C. before closing out the tour with two shows at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY. The band spent this past summer touring with Still Woozy as support on his Loveseat Tour and will be heading back on the road this fall for their headline North American tour, titled A Tour For You Specifically, launching October 30 that will now see support from Ggwendolyn.

While writing their new album Songs About You Specifically, MICHELLE rented out a house in Ojai, California. Surrounded by lizards, the smell of ripe cactus fruit, and endless expanses of sand, they experienced a profound sense of solitude and closeness that consequently shifted the tone of their work. While their earlier music channeled the churning restlessness of the city, these news songs meander and expand into starry shoegaze reveries, slick funk riffs, and lilting 80s synth pop. 

The months they spent touring, as well as the experience of living together in Ojai, fostered new bonds between the band. “There are friends I've had for almost my whole life who I won't know as intimately as I know members of this group,” band member Emma Lee shares. “There isn't really an opportunity for that in any other kind of relationship in your life.” The sense of trust and comfort they fostered with each other allowed them to be more candid and vulnerable in their songwriting too. “It’s so easy to write a generic love or breakup song,” Julian Kaufman says. “But many of these stories are true. We’re coming from a really honest place.” 

MICHELLE is comprised of Sofia D'Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard. The predominantly POC and queer collective mix and match the writing and production groups amongst the six of them. All 6 members of the group grew up in New York, and their fluorescent R&B encapsulates the best the city has to offer: the glow of neon lights bouncing off rain-slicked streets, the taste of a sticky mango purchased on a summertime Q train. The new album follows their GLOW EP and critically acclaimed albums AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS and HEATWAVE, praised by NYLON as a band that "defies categorization" and MTV as "mesmerizing."

Following these releases, the band traveled the U.S. and Europe opening for Gus Dapperton, Arlo Parks, and Mitski, selling out their own headline shows, and playing festivals including Governors Ball, Outside Lands and Lollapalooza. It was an experience that shifted their perspective and sense of place heading into the new album.