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"Last Night an Angel Saved My Life" could be the twist-on-a-classic title of this new single from UK pop trailblazer Olly Alexander who has today shared another cut from his forthcoming new album ‘Polari’, due February 7th 2025.
 

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"Archangel" sees Olly look back at a magical and life affirming moment when he felt saved by the love and care of a companion and follows emotive lead single ‘Cupid’s Bow’ and more recently the album’s punchy title track and opener ‘Polari’. This third offering, also created alongside pop maestro Danny L Harle, is awash with 80’s synths and drum patterns reminiscent of Olly’s pop heroes of the same era - warm, euphoric production shines over a pulsating beat that you can’t help dance to.

On the single Olly shares, “This is a song about how an angel saved me at my darkest moment, I don’t mean a mythical angel (or do I?) but rather someone in my life who picked me up when I was down. I’m really grateful to him, and to all the other angels (divine and non divine) who I’ve encountered along the way. I loved making this song with my musical partner Danny L Harle, our goal was to create something that sounded eternally optimistic, redemptive and like anything is possible. This is such a special song for me and I’m really happy to be putting it out and to show another side to Polari.”

Across the new album Olly explores themes of desire, intimacy, voyeurism and fate all wrapped up in a pounding club soundscape. Polari was crafted alongside writer and producer Danny L Harle and is a pop album for the ages. Olly Alexander’s first album under his own name takes as its primary inspiration the (almost) lost art of Polari. Originating around Europe and the Romani community as early as the 1600s, this coded slang became in effect a secret language for homosexuals and the stigmatized during the twentieth century. It’s a concept Olly first came across when coming out, and resonated more deeply with when playing Richie in ‘It’s A Sin’, where he grappled with questions about identity, self-expression and community. The kinds of which have always populated British life, and have long been threaded through the history of pop music - you just had to know where to look.

After a decade releasing music as Years andamp; Years, Polari is literally Olly Alexander talking the talk. He bonded with Danny L Harle over a mutual love of 80s club music, that period of uncompromising, avant-garde pop which nonetheless snuck into the mainstream. Polari remained a north star throughout the creative process, a language likewise lacking widespread recognition but still influential in plain sight (see such colloquialisms as “drag”, “naff” and “trade”). The album arrives alongside audio-visual world-building in which Olly is in complete control, from its anarchic Derek Jarman-inspired aesthetic to Olly even writing a short play accompanying its release, full of cowboys, gods, and the occasional music industry exec. And after a long history of secrets and subtext, Polari is ultimately an open and universal pop record about those needs that transcend time, sexuality, and self: what it means to belong, to be loved, and (Polari literally translates as “to talk”) to connect.

The landmark project will hit the road next year across the UK and Europe with the special intimate, Up Close and Polari tour for Spring 2025.