Jessie Ware dropped That! Feels! Good! in April, a shimmering pop-disco record primed to thrive during the summer months and tapped by Uproxx as one of the best pop albums of 2023 so far.
Ware said that “Pearls,” a February single, was “inspired by divas like Donna Summer, Evelyn Champagne King, Teena Marie, and Chaka Khan.” On Thursday, July 27, Ware invited “the queen of disco” Róisín Murphy to her That! Feels! Good! party to spice up the already-infectious track “Freak Me Now.”
“It is a huge honor to have the queen of disco, Róisín Murphy on ‘Freak Me Now.’ I messaged her hoping she may be interested in featuring on the song, and before I knew it, she was in the studio,” Ware said in a statement via press release. “She recorded all her vocals for the track and sent them over to us. I have admired her work for so many years [and] respect her so much.”
Ware continued, “To have her on one of the most fun tracks on That! Feels Good! Is amazing. I can’t wait for us to do this together live in the future! I know my fans are gonna go crazy about this, as am I. I still can’t quite believe we are on a track together and have done a bonkers video together. She is graceful, she is generous, she is pioneering, she is Róisín Murphy and she is on ‘Freak Me Now!’”
Murphy added, “Jessie is just brilliant, a super talented songwriter and an amazing singer. She’s truly beautiful, but she’s also very funny and never takes herself too seriously. We’ve been talking about working together for a while. When she sent me ‘Freak Me Now,’ I just adored it and felt it was perfectly right for me to be on the song. We had mad fun dressing up on the day of the video, it was fashion chaos! Like a high-class jumble sale, behind the scenes. We laughed at our ridiculousness and we were very silly all day! Just love her and loved everything about working with her.”
The accompanying video will premiere on YouTube here in the coming hours.
In the meantime, listen to Ware’s updated “Freak Me Now” with Murphy and check out Ware’s upcoming headlining dates below.