walt disco are back today with thrilling new single, ‘Coup de foudre’. The first release on their new home of EMI North, the Glasgow band have also announced details of intimate summer shows around the UK (artist presale opens on May 19th, before general sale on May 20th). Catch walt disco previewing further new material this week with two shows at The Great Escape Festival.
Built around the French phrase for a sudden, electric connection, ‘Coup de foudre’ is a lustful, fast-paced jolt that few walt disco followers – least of all the band themselves – might have seen coming. It’s a raw, immediate rush of 2000s dancefloor intensity, with Jocelyn channeling the sharp directness of Yeah Yeah Yeahs into (she says) “a horny, chaotic” song that’s as intense as it is euphoric.
The whipsmart clarity of ‘Coup de foudre’ runs through everything walt disco have, in their own way, always been working towards. Their debut album, Unlearning, was released in 2022, scoring enormous buzz and award nominations (including Best Independent Album at the AIM Awards). Touring took them from the likes of Glastonbury and SXSW to support slots in arenas around the world, alongside cultural co-signs from Charles Jeffrey and Louboutin. The band’s second album, The Warping, earned a second successive nomination for Scottish Album of the Year, but culminated in uncertainty. Broader life and lineup changes followed, as walt disco’s personal journeys – Jocelyn also started a course of HRT – collided with the quiet, generational fear of only being in your twenties, but feeling like the moment may have passed.
Enter ‘Coup de foudre’, a literal “bolt of love” that feels as bracingly new as it does, on a deeper level, like walt disco turning experience into the enriching. The band’s unreleased material soon caught the attention of Leeds-based label EMI North, who further echoed walt disco’s ambitions. Having been deeply rooted in Scotland’s thriving creative underground from the get-go, the group’s Glasgow-based collaborators have also helped them articulate their new vision with confidence and intent. Songs soon took shape that grapple with the strange, disorientating feeling of growing up (amid body dysmorphia, changing relationships, a volatile industry) and turning it all into art worth living. No mere rebirth, walt disco’s next era is something harder won: a continuation, where your ‘Coup de foudre’ may in fact be just around the corner.
14.05.26 || Brighton || The Great Escape Festival (Northern House Showcase, Waterbear, 8.15PM)
15.05.26 || Brighton || The Great Escape Festival (PRS Foundation Showcase, Brighthelm, 2.30PM)
24.06.26 || North Shields || Three Tanners Bank
26.06.26 || Birkenhead || Futureyard
27.06.26 || Hebden Bridge || The Trades Club (early show)
28.06.26 || Frome || The Tree House
30.06.26 || Guilford || Boileroom
01.07.26 || Edinburgh || Sneaky Pete’s
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