Pre-order: Orders will begin shipping on or around May 15th LA-based Sudanese-American artist Dua Saleh continues their ascent with Of Earth & Wires, a resolutely warm, spiritual, and frenetic follow-up exploring notions of home, humanity, and renewal. Executive produced by Billy Lemos (SZA, Paris Texas, Tinashe), the album features contributions from Bon Iver, aja monet, Gaidaa, and others. Saleh threads and deconstructs indie, R&B, and electronic pop with flashes of Sudanese folk, UK dance, and baile funk, sounds intrinsic to their story, all held together by ambitious, future-facing production and clear-eyed lyricism. Saleh’s soulful, gritty, shape-shifting style has found fans from The New York Times to NME, alongside their breakout role in the Netflix series Sex Education, making 2024's Ghostly International debut, I SHOULD CALL THEM, a proper arrival. The highly anticipated Of Earth & Wires responds to the moment as both a watershed in their career and an urgent dialogue with struggles faced on a universal level. Beyond mythological references and planetary narratives, with their strongest, most immediate material to date, Saleh makes the case for love above progress and greed, for divine beauty and the enduring flame of the human spirit. "While pondering the demise of Earth, I reflected on the ways that people would operate if modern society completely collapsed. Earth runs wild, becoming overgrown with vegetation, reclaiming her power. People must deconstruct their understanding of the old way and use what's left to be present with the Earth. As a Sudanese-American, I often feel as though my world has already begun collapsing as a result of the ongoing conflict in the region. I imagine what it would be like after all have been lost to the war. Mourning is a constant as plains are burned, sacred wildlife is decimated, and indigenous Africans are lost. If my world were to disappear, I would bring it back to life with aspects of home. For me, this means bringing in elements of sound that feel like home." Of Earth & Wires is the latest in a series of projects Saleh has visualized over the coming years — vast ambition drives their project, and at times presents its most practical challenge: how to rein in overflowing ideas. Enter the guidance of friends, most of whom have Midwest roots. Iowa-born Billy Lemos, whose playful production style brings the best out of Saleh. Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, the Grammy-winning indie star and pride of Eau Claire, has worked with Saleh on several projects, including Travis Scott’s UTOPIA. With their encouragement, joined by collaborator Ryan Olson and several other Minnesota-based producers and musicians, Saleh approached sessions without expectations; there were no outlined objectives or intentions that any recordings would all appear on an album by any artist involved. “I think we got like six songs within the span of three hours,” says Saleh, who sat with the material while filming Sex Education in Wales. “The war in Sudan was taking place, AI was emerging, and it just felt like the world might be ending. I was just kind of ruminating on where I could find my place as an artist amongst the terrain of AI, and I was lonely and overwhelmed. I missed my mom and my siblings; I felt like I was losing my accent being there, just questioning the notion of home on many levels. I started weaving an album around the music that we had made together, that we had collaborated on with other producers from Minnesota, where I grew up.” The image of land overcome by wires came to symbolize unchecked technological proliferation as Saleh gravitated towards a sonic duality: warm, melodic arrangements that felt natural and human, contrasted with moments of wild, manufactured effects. The most telling example opens the album, “5 Days,” where their bare vocals, delivered tenderly above strums, collide with a more aggressive and dissonant presence, a screamo song dipped in mercury. The Midwest thread runs throughout; Saleh points to “Flood” — “I was leaning into my Minnesota bag real bad” — where they shape wordplay around Vernon’s falsetto hook and a synth-driven bounce. The duo’s chemistry heats up on “Keep Away” and “Glow;” the latter, co-produced by longtime collaborator Simon Christensen (aka Ghostly alum Psymun), finds the artists feeding each other top lines, leaning into the idea of becoming a fictional band (named after Christensen’s dog). Saleh explains: “We suddenly had this soulful R&B hip-hop camaraderie, like The Isley Brothers, as if we were walking around with fur coats or something, we just realized it was a special song.” While a dream list of talent contributes to Of Earth & Wires, Saleh’s vision and story remain its central force. The rhythmic "Cállate" darts between shuffling beats and a baile-like groove as the elastic vocalist lands a mix of feathery coos and pointed blows. "I Do, I Do" is pure pop balladry with a higher purpose, with Saleh nodding to a Sudanese proverb (“He who mixes poison is bound to lick his fingers”), underscored by plucks from an oud (a Middle Eastern instrument vital to Sudanese folk music) played by Malek Vossough. “You make me feel faint,” Saleh whispers into “Anemic,” a sultry R&B cut featuring Sudanese singer Gaidaa. Standout “Firestorm” is a coastal love song imagined from a place of heartbreak after the Los Angeles fires. Backed by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles and a beat from Vernon, Saleh reaches for their sweetest tones, suspended briefly in a bliss born from trauma. The record is bookended by poetry, first on “5 Days” with Saleh’s Prometheus-referencing outro, and later across the stunning closer, “ALL IS LOVE” featuring aja monet, the Grammy-nominated poet who shares a wider label home with Saleh. With cloud-parting grace and wisdom, monet’s prose lends Of Earth & Wires a sense of resolution and hope that, despite humanity’s worst, Mother Nature may find a way, and love could conquer all.
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