The New York artist builds an immersive, otherworldly world on her latest album.

My favourite comment under the music video for ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan reads thus: “No matter how far in the future you play this song it will still sound like it came out in the future”. Although it sounds nothing like Gary, you could certainly say the same for James K’s new album, ‘Friend’. ‘Friend’ is the intersection between two great trends of 2025: retrofuturistic nostalgia, and club music that would be totally unsuited to the club. Artists like Smerz, Oklou, and RIP Swirl have spent the year making music that seems an inevitable result of the post-COVID party boom. Headphoney, spaced-out, and relentlessly chill, this scene pontificates and celebrates night life, friendship, and making out, with only circumstantial musical influence from dance – the odd house beat, or electroclash synth. Under a glow of urban-angelic haze, James K, who has been bubbling under since the early 2010s, has formulated an album that feels utterly futuristic. Despite its hauntological reference points (if The KLF were obsessed with acts like Sneaker Pimps and LSD & The Search For God), this is an album that feels like a vision of a utopian future broadcasted from heaven.

The cover for ‘Friend’, inspired by Led Zeppelin’s ‘IV’, features abstract symbols created by K with artist Isha Dipika Walia, an expressionist approach reflected in the warped abstraction which defines the record. Opening with the pensive IDM patter of ‘Days Go By’, K’s angelic tone echoes a world of its own, recalling Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser. Her lyrics fit the musical landscape, sometimes unintelligible, sometimes whispered, always otherworldly. ‘Blinkmoth (July Mix)’ is the most outwardly trip hop cut on the album, featuring reverberated sound effects comparable to other nu-hop artists currently making waves, such as Moin (former collaborators of K’s) and Deptford’s finest, wing!. ‘Doom Bikini’ is instantly catchy dream-poppery, as stylised as it is substantial. With its sine-saw synth piercing through the mix, it’s like if A.R Kane were produced by Dr Dre.

‘Idea.2’ is a clear homage to the Boards of Canada/Squarepusher era of British electronic music. The production leans a little too heavily on its influences, wearing them like a fine cashmere sweater a size too small. Regardless, the Caroline Polachek-coded melody more than compensates. Next up, ‘Rider’ feels like falling in slow motion. Its new-age, ultra-ethereal production is a psychedelic tidal wave that never washes onto the beach, the lip of the surf curling around and enveloping the surfer beneath it. It begs for inclusion in a particularly surreal Harmony Korine film. Despite its unassuming nature, it is so striking it demands attention. What doesn’t demand attention is the track after it, or the track after that. When the ‘Lude (unwind)’ interlude comes along, the break feels a little undeserved – undeserved by the listener, who has been zoned out for the previous six minutes.

The club environ is resurrected on ‘Play’, a stunning hybrid of shoegaze power chords, jungular beats and IDM synths. Its cutting lyrics (“Wherever you go / You’re gonna be alone / Won’t try to fight for you one last time / Won’t fight because they just lie”) contribute to the emotional release, a time-lapsed hip hop montage of rage room footage, obliterating the lethargy of the post-lunch slump that precedes it. ‘Hypersoft Lovejinx Junkdream’ doubles down on the breakbeats against an interpolation of Bôa’s ‘Duvet’, a welcome update which projects the late-90s melody far into the future. ‘Collapse (falling forward blissfully all the time)’ encapsulates the vibe of the record perfectly, a flowing, guitar-picking ballad that transcends the intended melancholia.

James K characterised ‘Friend’ as “a definition of love at this moment in my life, equally euphoric and grounded, gentle and safe while processing certainty, uncertainty, pain, and joy.” All these things were achieved, except her desire to keep the music grounded. ‘Friend’ is an album that hovers above the peripheral, occupying the heat-warbled haze of the horizon, a synesthetic reimagining of emotion expressed through abstracted synth and gossamer guitar. Though the washed-out soundscapes of the mid-record lull pushes the listener closer to drowsiness than dreaminess, the final quarter is worth sticking around for. Grounded? Probably not. But when it sounds this good, who would want their James K grounded anyway?