If you’re from pretty much anywhere in the world right now other than, say, New Zealand, you’re likely experiencing a leadership void. As the year progresses along a downward spiral and careens wildly along Shitshow Boulevard, it’s clear the only true leadership available to any one of us is from within. So we’re vibing the fuck out of Starling’s new single “No Leader,” a slinky, percussive alt-pop rattler that’s all about finding it in oneself to pull through in times of trouble and need. Because there’s no one else coming to save us, and the London native is quite aware of this.
“I had taken ayahuasca in the forest and it taught me that in all the time I had been looking to others for answers I should have been looking to myself,” says Starling. “In a constant quest to find myself, to understand meaning, life and my purpose I tried every therapy, meditation, and immersion possible and in this started to realize, I was the one I was looking for. Every type of spiritual excursion was had from vipassanā to trauma therapy to kundalini and it guided me to me. This is the truth. When no one is here to guide us, or what we are told doesn’t resonate, we must guide ourselves… and be our own leader.”
Cheers to that.
“No Leader” serves as the first taste of Starling’s forthcoming album, To Be Alive, which carries on the tone set across her series of well-received EPs from 2016 to 2018, The Heart, The Body, and The Soul, respectively, and last year’s “Lilac” single. There’s no street date as of yet for the new LP, but that’s cool, it just gives us more time to let the message of “No Leader” cascade all over us.