zzzahara will release their new album, Spiral Your Way Out, will arrive on January 10th, 2025, via Lex Records. Ahead of the release, the artist has shares its lead single/video, “Ghosts.” The followup to their 2023 album, Tender. The album finds zzzahara in the aftermath of a relationship spent trying to fit someone else’s mold, being jerked around by indecision, and then hitting “emotional rock bottom.”

The forthcoming album is in part a work of self-reclamation, swapping Tender’s meditative state for something fiery and more assertive. “I was going through such a tough time, but I felt like I didn’t have anyone to reach out to,” zzzahara says of the period leading up to the album, which was a chaotic blur spent mostly on tour or in isolation. “When I finally sat down in the studio, I just had all this fucking anger – towards that person for treating me badly, but mostly towards myself for not walking away. I think in that situation I just kind of let things be, and I was mad at myself for letting myself isolate for so long and never putting my foot down. In the end, I just took it all out on the record.”

Taking a more collaborative approach than usual, zzzahara worked with a range of producers including Jorge Elbrecht (Japanese Breakfast, No Joy, Sky Ferreira), Sarah Tudzin (boygenius, Cloud Nothings, The Armed), former Ducktails guitarist Alex Craig (Jelani Aryeh / re6ce) and Halsey tour drummer Franco Reid, who helped harness their intimate style of writing and blow it up into something more panoptic. “A lot of the instrumentation is either a group effort or just two of us in the room, so it felt nice to have that weight off my shoulders,” they explain. “It felt comfortable to have them lead or translate what I’d written and make it better.”

“Music for me is therapeutic,” says zzzahara. After a year of upheaval, zzzahara finally feels “calm.” The musical equivalent to going several rounds on a punching bag, Spiral Your Way Out finds solace between extremes. It licks its wounds in a place where pain and love, healing and abandon, sit side-by-side. If it has a message, it’s one of standing tall in your own shoes – scuffs and all. “That’s what I figured out at the end of this journey: I don’t need all this therapy. I can just be, and it’ll be okay.”

zzzahara
Spiral Your Way Out
Tracklist
Lex Records

1. It Didn’t Mean Nothing
2. In Your Head
3. Bruised
4. If I Had To Go I Would Leave the Door Closed Half Way
5. Wish You Would Notice (Know This)
6. Ghosts
7. Pressure Makes a Diamond
8. Head in a Wheel
9. Bluebird
10. NY NY

Pre-order Spiral Your Way Out by zzzahara HERE