In her own words, iyla frames ‘Weeping Angel’, with ‘Pledge’, pink tinted memories, and a cinematic ‘Corset’ collaboration.
iyla places the narrative at the forefront, speaking directly to the heart of her debut.
“Weeping Angel is my debut album, named after the monster that is love,” iyla reveals. “We created this album in the most challenging and transformative couple years of my life. It’s a reflection of everything I felt but couldn’t say out loud… it’s freedom, sensuality, heartache, pain, moments of clarity, grief and the spectrum that is to love and be loved in return. These songs came from laughs and from screams. This album was drowned in tears and brought back to the surface again to see the sun. Creating this project was a way of surviving, of making art from the wreckage, and discovering new parts of myself through it all. Weeping Angel is spiritual, provocative, and a ride you will never want to get off of.”
Out now on all platforms, the 13 track ‘Weeping Angel’ gathers ‘Wild’, ‘Strut’, ‘Overboard’, and ‘Corset’, and introduces the focus track ‘Pledge’, which she defines with uncompromising confidence. “‘Pledge’ is a sexy and confident demand for a man to step his game up,” says iyla of the new track. “Drop to your knees or fly away forever.”
The album’s arc is anchored in the period following her mother’s passing, and that experience permeates the music’s spiritual and sensual edges. On ‘Ave Maria’, iyla speaks to a tension she aims to resolve in her art, “If you’re spiritual, there’s often an expectation you can’t embrace your own sexuality,” she notes. A companion to loss and color, ‘Cotton Candy Clouds’ is her ode to memories painted pink, “Her favorite color was pink, and my favorite color was never pink. Since her death, my favorite color is now pink,” iyla shares.
Elsewhere, she explores internal friction on ‘Twin Flame’, brings a sanctuary feel to ‘Join Hands’, and pairs poise with power on ‘Skirt Hurt (Redemption)’, which carries a personal timestamp, “It’s the first track I wrote after my mom’s passing,” she says. “I always need to have this stance of bad-bitch energy—but conveyed in a poetic and timeless way.”
Her recent single ‘Corset’, produced by longtime collaborator Kadis, sharpened the album’s mood, a cinematic slow burn full of metaphor and tension. Its visual, directed by Justin Moser with iyla serving as creative director, animates the ‘Weeping Angel’ artwork in haunting, surreal motion.
