After recently making her welcomed return, which included a thrilling performance as part of Chaka Khan’s Meltdown Festival at London’s Southbank Centre last month, as well as a sold out residency at Los Angeles’ Sun Rose on Sunset Strip. Today, Lady Blackbird makes her extremely welcome return with brand new studio album Slang Spirituals, out now on BMG.

Featuring powerful offerings in ‘Reborn’, ‘Man On A Boat’ and the BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 and Jazz FM playlisted track ‘Let Not (Your Heart Be Troubled’, the new record is ‘A compelling showcase for a truly magnetic soul-jazz voice’ (Record Collector).

Collaborating once again with Black Acid Soul producer Chris Seefried, the pair produce a second album that not only embodies the freewheeling, emotive Lady Blackbird sound, but that also taps into deeply vulnerable lyrics that recount the singer’s challenging ascent to musical stardom.

Growing up in the small town of Farmington, New Mexico, Lady Blackbird was raised in a religious Christian household and began singing as soon as she could walk. “Once I entered my teenage years, I started to realise that religion was something that was put on me and it never felt right,” she says. “As I also began to develop my own identity as a queer woman, I felt judged as an outcast and labelled as a sinner. It was burying who I really was and I needed to find a way out.”

In taking charge of her own life and her own sound, Lady Blackbird walks a new path, making each note on Slang Spirituals a step in a radically different direction. Across 11 tracks Lady Blackbird puts her sweeping, cinematic vocal power to use on everything from the soulful orchestral fanfares of ‘Let Not (Your Heart Be Troubled)’ to the finger-picking folk storytelling of ‘Man On A Boat’, euphoric gospel empowerment of ‘Like A Woman’ and the seven-minute psychedelic soul instrumental of ‘When The Game Is Played On You’.

Lady Blackbird will be supporting Moby in the UK & Europe on tour as part of his 25th Anniversary of ‘Play’, from September 16th-25th (including London, The O2 on Sep 19th), before heading into Europe for her own headline run from November 16th – December 7th.

“This is my journey of becoming,” she concludes. “It’s me rewriting the book to show the world who I truly am. From being labelled a sinner to finding my acceptance.”