Lauren Mayberry has returned with new single “Change Shapes”, the track is available via Island Records. The track, is the third solo song to be released by the CHVRCHES’ vocalist, following last year’s debut ballad “Are You Awake?” and “Shame”. “Change Shapes” was written by Mayberry, Matt Koma, Cleo Tighe and Evan Blair, and produced by Koma.

The new song sees Mayberry expanding upon the themes of how traditional gender roles have impacted her life and career. “I feel like I perform to the general public but also play a character inside the internal experience, because there is so much negotiation involved in my existence there,” she says. “How do I keep people happy enough that they’ll let me do the creative work that I want to? I feel quite fake and hypocritical sometimes because so much of the narrative around the band is “feminist”, but my experience inside of it hasn’t been a lot of the time. I feel like I did all this work to make things function but when you DO adapt yourself in that way, it’s seen as manipulative, in order to get what you want.”

Lauren Mayberry still remembers what it felt like to sit alone in her teenage bedroom, headphones on, listening to artists like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple as if it was some kind of private spiritual practice. At 15, she was already playing in bands, and although there was plenty of music she and her male bandmates could agree on, she knew from experience that they would just tease her if she tried to get them into Tori, Fiona, PJ Harvey or Kathleen Hanna.

Order “Change Shapes” by Lauren Mayberry HERE