Jordan Rakei is feeling more free than ever before. A decade since the release of his debut album Cloak, the New Zealand-born and British-based singer-songwriter is entering a new chapter of unfettered creativity. Channeling the liberating bedroom beat-making mentality of his teenage years, he brings listeners his most expansive and vulnerable album yet, A Safe Place To Be Wild. “I’ve been creating with no rules, just exploring and leaning into the uncomfortable side of the unknown,” he says. “This record is unfiltered and it expresses all of me. I’m always pushing myself as an artist and now it’s birthed a new phase that’s borderline unhinged.”
Over the past 10 years, multi-instrumentalist and producer Rakei has built a loyal global fanbase thanks to his distinctively searching musical voice. Across six albums he has delved into everything from neo-soul warmth to jazz-influenced improvisation, earworming pop melodics, sweeping orchestral arrangements and storytelling songwriting. Collaborating with the likes of South London rapper Loyle Carner, singer-songwriter Tom Misch and producer Bonobo, Rakei has been nominated for Best Album at the 2025 Ivor Novello Awards following the release of his acclaimed fifth record, The Loop, as well as receiving a nomination for an AIR Award and the Australian Music Prize. Onstage, meanwhile, his joyous and masterfully-arranged live shows have had crowds bouncing everywhere from Glastonbury to two sold-out performances at the Royal Albert Hall.
Seemingly at the peak of his prolific career to date, Rakei now takes a radical turn. Rather than painstakingly collaborating in recording studios and poring over the post-production process, on his seventh album he takes a no-holds-barred approach. Informed by a year spent as the first resident at London’s iconic Abbey Road Studios and inspired by the creation of his own home studio just outside of London, Rakei set to work on a new, instinctive process that followed the urge for freedom, experimentation and truth-telling vulnerability. The result is 14 tracks of remarkably wide-ranging yet engagingly cohesive music; songs that speak to Rakei’s recent experiences of fatherhood, love and life, as well as expressing his hopes and fears for the world at large. There is the playful falsetto funk of “Would Ya Mind”, the eerie, cavernous electronics of “Mirror”, cinematic strings and orchestral melodrama of “Bombs” and ‘70s throwback psych-soul of “Enemies” – all tied together by Rakei’s ear for lasting melody and anchored in the soft vibrato of his voice.
With future plans for more material from his productive Abbey Road sessions to be released, as well as an extensive tour that will reimagine Rakei’s expert stagecraft across the UK and EU, including dates at London’s Alexandra Palace with more global dates to be announced, it seems this new chapter for the visionary creative is only getting started. “I’m truly myself in this music,” he says. “It’s all about creating that safe space to be wild and free.”
