London’s Girl Ray recently released their wonderful, disco-fied third album, Prestige, and are currently on their first US tour in five years. They’ve now released a new stand-alone single, “Hurt So Bad,” that was produced by Hot Chip and is from the same sessions that gave us 2021 single “Give Me Your Love.” It’s their most purely electronic song, but still has that Girl Ray sense of melody and charm.
“’Hurt So Bad’ was written during the pandemic, when I was working on writing our third album and still deciding what the feel of it would be,” says the band’s Poppy Hankin. “Initially I thought that a more electronic/house inspired sound would be a good fit for us, and with ‘Give Me Your Love’ and ‘Hurt So Bad’ demoed, we visited Al Doyle and Joe Goddard’s studio near Brick Lane to flesh them out. They were a great match for the songs, and we loved playing with their mountains of rare synths. Although our album ended up being more live, I think you can still hear the beginnings of our disco inspiration in this track.” You can watch the song’s visualizer below.
Girl Ray are in Texas currently, opening for Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo, with El Paso, Austin and Dallas shows this weekend, and then they head to the West Coast for more headline shows. They were fantastic at their tour kickoff in Brooklyn, so go see them if they play near you. All tour dates are below.
Girl Ray – 2023 Tour Dates
Thu-Oct-26 San Antonio, TX Paper Tiger w/ Alan Palomo
Fri-Oct-27 Austin, TX LEVITATION w/ Alan Palomo
Sat-Oct-28 Dallas, TX Ferris Wheelers w/ Alan Palomo
Mon-Oct-30 Seattle, WA Barboza
Tue-Oct-31 Portland, OR Polaris Hall
Thu-Nov-02 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
Fri-Nov-03 Los Angeles, CA Gold-Diggers
Sat-Nov-04 La Jolla, CA The Loft @ UC San Diego
Mon-Nov-06 Chicago, IL Sleeping Village
Check out photos from Girl Ray’s show at The Sultan Room:
