Asha Jefferies announces her new album, Desire Is An Angel, out October 2 via Nettwerk and shares new single and video ‘Art of Suggestion‘. This month, Asha is set to play intimate solo shows in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, showcasing her new material in its rawest form.
After releasing her debut album, Ego Ride, in 2024, Jefferies toured the UK, Europe and the US, and supported Courtney Barnett, Soccer Mommy, Hana Vu and Middle Kids, before returning to the UK in late 2025 to record Desire Is An Angel with producer Tom Iansek (Big Scary, Maple Glider). Co-produced by Jefferies and Iansek, the new album showcases Jefferies’ sophisticated indie rock and folk-pop songcraft. It’s both more sonically ambitious and more intimately personal than its predecessor.
On the new single, ‘Art of Suggestion’, one of the record’s most classic-sounding pop songs, Jefferies plays with the imaginative potential of desire. “I wrote ‘Art of Suggestion’ about being swept away by the undertow of desire. Before confirmation is revealed and you know someone is interested in you, there is a heavy, electrifying drive to project your desires onto them. Daydreaming has taught me that sometimes, the exhilaration of seduction is less about contact and more about the unknown,” Jefferies explains.
The track arrives alongside a music video directed by Meg Siejka, shot on a farm in Victoria. Jefferies adds, “We wanted to play with the embodiment of desire through daydreaming. Desire can feel expansive and intoxicating in ordinary places – while cleaning your teeth, sitting by the pool on holiday or watering the garden. Filming this required a lot of changing out of wet jeans…”
Jefferies wanted to make music that would soften her. As she started writing songs for her second album, Jefferies began listening closely to her desire, accessing parts of herself that had previously been hidden. We tend to think of desire as stemming from lack. But on her new album, Desire Is An Angel, Asha Jefferies depicts desire as an essential force in the development of our self-knowledge.
“It’s less about getting what you want, and more about understanding what you want and why you want it,” Jefferies says. Making the album was a transformative process, she adds, “It has taught me how to feel more confident and comfortable within what I desire. I think before, I was quite timid and hesitant to want things.”
Jefferies explores her former tendency to silence desire on the album’s first single, the symphonically-adorned ‘Backwards Baby’. A similar effort to stamp out desire shows up in ‘Cool Guy’, a crescendoing alt-country song that starts out sounding like a scratchy home demo and ends sounding like the sort of power ballad that could bring lighters into the air in a packed arena.
On the meditative 2-part title track, Jefferies draws attention to desire’s spiritual dimension, singing, “Desire is an angel, and I can’t turn it off”. On ‘Lilo & Switch’, a song that recalls the punchy and emotive indie rock of Soccer Mommy and Lucy Dacus, Jefferies illustrates how desire goes to the core of our being. “I wanna listen,” she sings. “Wanna reach some wisdom.”
At the centre of Desire Is An Angel is Jefferies’ voice, which never sounds formal or abstract, even when she flaunts her vast vocal range. Every line is delivered with emotive intent, with Jefferies occasionally attenuating vocal phrases or shifting into a conversational tone to better evoke the complex feelings being explored.
The album is by turns raw, sympathetic, elated and erotic. But the ultimate effect of listening to Desire Is An Angel is a softening. “It’s a way of processing my life as well, to digest what I really want and look at what that might mean,” Jefferies says. “I’ve learnt that I can give that to myself.”
Asha Jefferies’ rise earned her a Queensland Music Award and an AIR Award nomination for Best Pop Album, alongside praise from the likes of CLASH, Rolling Stone, Flood Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, and 10 Magazine. She’s received widespread radio support, including airplay on KCRW and KEXP, and performed for triple j’s Like A Version.
Across her run of intimate shows this June, Asha will be joined by Charlotte Meade in Brisbane, Betty in Sydney and Clover Blue in Melbourne. Expect to hear new songs, new stories and new insight into the singer-songwriter’s world. Tickets on sale here.
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR ‘ART OF SUGGESTION’
ASHA JEFFERIES LIVE AND INTIMATE
Thu 25 June – Season 3, Brisbane w Charlotte Meade
Fri 26 June – Low 302, Sydney w Betty
Sat 27 June – Bell City, Melbourne w Clover Blue
Tickets on sale here
Asha Jefferies Desire Is An Angel – out Oct 2 via Nettwerk
Track listing
1. Backwards Baby
2. Art of Suggestion
3. Lilo & Switch
4. Cool Guy
5. Desire is
6. An Angel
7. Why Does Your Girl Look Like Me?
8. Walrus
9. What the Hell
10. Leftovers
