Lianne La Havas Returns With First New Single in 5 Years: ‘It’s About Vulnerability and Honesty’

Lianne La Havas is back: After five years of relative quiet, the British singer-songwriter has returned with new single “Disarray.” 

The emotive song, which La Havas has described in a press release as a “window into a moment of my life,” was recorded live to tape, capturing a tender, passionate vocal performance. “The song felt very intimate, almost like a secret just for me,” she added.

“My memory of this/ Will forever exist/ I have one wish/ That you would be the man you were,” the 36-year-old sings atop finger-plucked electric guitar, poignantly describing the protracted breakdown of a relationship. Listen to the track in full below.

“Disarray” marks the first slice of new material from La Havas since her self-titled LP, which was released in 2020. Written with Matthew Hales, the concept record depicted the stages of dating from early romance to its end, and scooped the best album prize at the Ivor Novello Awards the following year.

Lianne La Havas charted at No. 7 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart upon release and also earned its author a BRIT nomination for best female solo artist. It marked the Londoner’s third top 10 album in the U.K., following 2015’s Blood (No. 2) and the Mercury Prize-nominated Is Your Love Big Enough? (No. 4), released three years prior.

Posting to social media, La Havas has indicated that “Disarray” is the start of a new chapter in her career, though details of an album are yet to be revealed. 

​​”For the last couple of years, my life could have been described as utter disarray,” she wrote in a cryptic post uploaded to Instagram last week (Sept. 24). “Today, I can thankfully say, that is now firmly in the past, so I’d like to share my story with you in the coming months.”