Marika Hackman to Release FALSE DOGS Album and Share First Single

Marika Hackman has announced her fifth studio album, False Dogs, out February 19th, 2027 via Chrysalis Records. Produced, arranged and written by Hackman herself, False Dogs is described as her most assured and emotionally affecting record yet: an intimate album about the beauty and anxieties of mid-thirties malaise.

False Dogs sees Hackman step up as the architect of her own sonic world. She plays almost every instrument on the record, from guitars, piano and drums to bass, mandolin and synth, while navigating the spectrum of emotions felt upon reaching milestones in your life previously imagined as a child. When the romanticism of your twenties melts away, the stark reality of grief and a deeper understanding of the passage of time appears. Referencing the imagined structures and 'false gods' unquestioningly believed in childhood and so comfortably put aside with the wisdom of age, the album title's playful spelling error of False Dogs acts as a nod to this changeability of our dreams, desires and belief systems.

'In trying to wrangle with the idea of what's 'expected' from us at certain ages, it allowed me to really reflect on all the things that make life wonderful – even at its bleakest,' shares Marika.

False Dogs carries an audible sense of liberation, a record made on instinct. Hackman meets the passing of time from a place of relative stillness rather than chaos, and finds beauty in the everyday.

Alongside the announcement Marika shares the album's bittersweet opening track '33', a song about the passage of time. Marika worked with a children's choir on the song, who portray a shadow character who tells her to 'keep pushing,' despite being immobilized by both nostalgia and fear of the future. Marika explains, ''33 grapples with the dull ache of nostalgia, the apprehension of the future and the celebration of the moments in between - keep pushing, it's worth it.''

The official video, created by JOFI Films and conceptualized with Marika, beautifully captures the push and pull of growing up and time moving on.

False Dogs Tracklisting

33

Close To Me

I'm Good

Handsome

The Blows

Be Surprised

Everything You Wanted

Ha_Happy

Half Painted Dog

Hello Sunshine

Lying Down

Crimson

False Dogs was constructed over hours of playful experimentation at Marika's East London studio, followed by a ten-day stint at Ramsgate's Big Jelly Studios, aided by previous collaborator Charlie Andrew and Polly Mackey aka. Art School Girlfriend — Hackman's wife. Making use of the converted chapel's roomy acoustics, the sound of the Kent coast can also be heard in field recordings – crashing waves, church bells, fireworks – subtly peppered across the record.

'I think this truly is the first record that I have fully inhabited my creative skin right up to its edges,' says Marika.

Across False Dogs, she wrangles with the expectations we measure our lives against (are you married, have you bought a house, is there a child on the way?) and undercuts them with glimmers of light, with delicate songwriting juxtaposed against expansive production, and Marika's haunting vocals fans have come to love her for.

In January 2024, Marika released Big Sigh to widespread critical acclaim, followed by an extensive U.S. tour in support of the album. Marika's story began with a run of early EPs produced with Charlie Andrew, and a debut single, 'You Come Down', produced by Johnny Flynn. Across We Slept at Last (2015), the grungier I'm Not Your Man (2017), recorded with The Big Moon as her band, and the frank, liberated Any Human Friend (2019), she established herself as one of the most distinctive and unflinching songwriters of her generation.

Over the years she has lent her distinct voice to alt-J's 'Warm Foothills' and 'Last Year', toured with Laura Marling, alt-J and The 1975, and played Glastonbury, Latitude, Green Man, End of the Road, Pitchfork, Reading & Leeds and All Points East. She was the face and voice of Burberry's 2012 eyewear campaign, and her song 'Before I Sleep' featured in the TV drama The Last Frontier.

Photo Credit: Jono White