Tash Sultana has released their new EP, SUGAR.
Announced last month, SUGAR dropped today through Sultana’s own label. The EP is the much-anticipated follow-up to their 2021 full-length album TERRA FIRMA, which topped the ARIA Albums Chart and earned Sultana an ARIA nomination for Best Soul/R&B Release.
Unsurprisingly from the multi-hyphenate, Sultana produced, composed, arranged, and played every single instrument on the EP, writing the songs in the comfort of their own home and studio. SUGAR is described as “encapsulating their life from 2021 to 2023,” serving as a deep reflection on that period.
“I feel like the entire point of my career has always been DIY,” Sultana says. “I’ve always produced everything, written everything, played every instrument you hear, engineered, co-engineered, and sometimes mixed and mastered. I have always done all that, but I feel like people still just don’t get it, and to me, it’s the most important message.”
SUGAR contains previous singles “New York”, written about a specific experience the multi-instrumentalist had in the titular city, and “James Dean”, which acted as the singer-songwriter’s reckoning with self-reflection and transformation.
It also contains “Bitter Lovers”, a collaboration with BJ the Chicago Kid. “We had been following each other for a while ’cause I’m a fan of what he does, and lo and behold, one morning, I woke up, and there was a nice little message in my DM’s from BJ saying, ‘let’s fucking do a track.’ Now here we are,” explains Sultana.
You can listen to Sultana’s new EP below.
During an in-depth discussion backstage at the 2023 Shure Rolling Stone Australia Awards, held in Sydney earlier this year, Sultana shared their excitement about entering into this new chapter of their career. “It’s still me, I’m doing it, it’s just that I’m much happier than I was before,” they said.
Tash Sultana’s SUGAR EP is out now via Lonely Lands Records.
