Recently released digitally and on CD, Rosie Lowe’s Lover, Other is now available on vinyl. It is, in her own words, “a collage” of musical influences and personal experiences. The album merges Lowe’s love for choral music, sample culture, and the raw energy of live performance with the intricacies of electronic production. “I wanted to incorporate it all into an album, weaving together the different processes in writing that excite me,” she explains. It’s a layered, sometimes chaotic mission statement, but it’s one shaped by over a decade of releasing music and a lifetime of musical obsession.

That complexity runs through all 15 tracks of Lover, Other, reflecting the dualities that define Lowe - self-doubt vs. self-assurance, youth vs. age, life vs. death. The album feels like an intimate dialogue between opposing forces, with Lowe’s flawless vocal delivery acting as the thread that holds the artistic patchwork together. “There’s an undercurrent through it all of me trying to make sense of it all, balancing the line between happiness and love, despair and destruction,” Lowe shares. The result is a multi-faceted celebration of Lowe’s character and musicianship, one that reflects her inner conflict and complexity.

Lowe first gained attention with her 2013 EP Right Thing, and since then, the Devon-born, Deptford-based artist has carved out a distinct space in British music. Her 2016 debut album Control and its 2019 follow-up YU were met with critical acclaim, earning features in The Guardian and British Vogue as well as support from Radio 1 and 6Music. Her unmistakable vocals attracted collaborations with a diverse range of artists including Jay Electronica, Little Simz, Machinedrum, and Lil Silva. And no less than hip-hop giants Future and Juice Wrld sampled her on their track “No Issue.”

Now, as an independent artist signed to Blue Flowers in 2020, Lowe has embraced a newfound creative freedom. Without the pressure of tight deadlines, she’s been able to focus on what truly drives her artistically. On Lover, Other, she is fully in control, taking on writing, recording, and production duties herself to craft something truly singular. The album moves fluidly between genres - there are dancefloor moments like the garage-tinged “Something,” alongside more abstract tracks like “Don’t Go,” and the 808-heavy, synth-driven “Berzerk” that gives way to the soulful “There Goes The Light.” “It’s an inner monologue of sorts that embraces ‘two sides of a coin’—both the good and bad aspects of my character,” she explains.

The creation of Lover, Other took Lowe across multiple locations, from Florence and Barcelona to Berlin and Devon. “I was desperate for a change,” she reflects, “of pace, scenery, weather, air.” Lowe set up a mobile studio and allowed her surroundings to guide her creativity. It was during an artist residency in the sleepy Spanish village of Madremanya that the album truly began to take shape. “I arrived at Can Obert at 2am after a delayed flight and problems with the hire car and was greeted by four guard-dogs barking at me and went to sleep that night sure that I’d made a huge mistake. I woke up the next morning to the most beautiful warm light & the town’s church bells ringing and wandered to the main house to meet the wonderful couple who were putting me up. They ended up becoming a second family and the house, a second home for the writing of this record.”

Lowe immersed herself in the village’s slow pace, with mornings spent swimming and afternoons filled with shared meals and record swaps. “We would play each other rare finds from Brazil, Japan, and Cuba,” she recalls, some of which made their way into the album’s samples, like Japanese multi-instrumentalist Makoto Matsushita on “In The Morning.” Lowe also leaned into her appreciation for sample culture, acquiring an SP-1200 and layering her own voice alongside vinyl cuts. The album’s textures are rich with fragments of her travels - ambient sounds recorded on walks in Spain, Sri Lanka, and Devon. “Perfection and precision were never the aim,” she says. “If it felt natural, felt good, it stayed.”

As Lover, Other reflects the complexity of Lowe’s character, it also marks her most complete and authentic work to date. “There are aspects of my personality that may clash and collide but I know myself,” she says, adding that this acceptance of her contradictions has shaped her sound.