Blue Mena Announces Sophomore Album PURE LUCK via Roc Nation

Brooklyn-based songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ Blue Mena (they/them) has announced their sophomore album, Pure Luck, out January 22 via Roc Nation Distribution, and shared the double single 'Jamie' and 'Troublemakers.' Following recent single 'Black bear,' the songs introduce an album where hazy dream pop and warped electronic production frame stories of queer romance, self-reckoning and the chance encounters that bring people together.

'Jamie' opens a two-part love story inspired by James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Pulsing drums and hallucinogenic vocals carry Mena's dreamy dance pop as they inhabit David, the novel's conflicted protagonist, singing, 'You can't stop the wind of your life.'

'Jamie is my version of David, or at least the parts of David that I relate to, a person that is running away from his problems and swept up in the wind of his own life,' Mena shares. 'This one goes full dreamy dance pop and feels like a nice compliment to my song 'Jewels' that I released a few years back.'

Self-directed and shot by Mena, the accompanying 'Jamie' video brings the song to life through a hazy, dreamy collage of New York City life. Juxtaposed scenes of sun-drenched walks, friends singing, and vibrant nightlife unfold with playful, restless energy and an undercurrent of wistful intimacy.

Meanwhile, 'Troublemakers' turns toward New York nightlife and the queer outcasts who find freedom in warehouses and club bathrooms. The song explores the darker side of those spaces and the refuge they offer, with the understanding that 'nothing is a promise.'

'This is my favorite songwriting on the album,' Mena says. 'It's about a lot of things… being trans in new york, trying to exist in nightlife, drugs, sex. Queer kids up to no good because they have nowhere else to be.'

The double single follows 'Black bear,' inspired by a real encounter that occurred while Mena was fleeing NYC on a road trip with a lover. They embellish the experience to make a larger statement about life, much as they take guitar and piano recordings in their 'pure' state and distort them into otherworldly sounds.

'These songs are less about romantic love than everything surrounding it,' Mena says, 'the circumstances that make love feel so fleeting, random, and unsolvable.'

Written between LA backhouses, Brooklyn, XL Recordings' Manhattan studio and upstate New York, Pure Luck emerged during a period of movement and transition. Mena mixed the album alongside Mikaelin Bluespruce, known professionally as MixedByBlue (Solange, Blood Orange), with saxophone from Levon Henry and pedal steel from Dustin Deetz adding to its liminal, nighttime atmosphere.

Pure Luck reflects Mena's roots in New York's queer nightlife, where they first established themself as a DJ and organizer. Drawing on their jazz guitar background and a formative discovery of Cocteau Twins, they developed their sound across 2023's Multi Adolescence and 2025's gums EP. Those projects led to performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Dev Hynes and Kindness, alongside opening slots for Nabihah Iqbal, Fabiana Palladino and Zsela.

Inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Giovanni's Room, the album builds cinematic worlds from hypnotic guitar, spectral voices and city noise, stretching split-second emotions into lingering memories. 'You know that feeling of locking eyes with a stranger in the train passing yours?' Mena asks. 'That's the feeling I was trying to capture.'

Where Multi Adolescence turned inward, Pure Luck opens its narratives to other lives and perspectives, tracing home, belonging, survival and grief through the upheaval of Mena's Saturn return.

Muted and textural, the album follows a 'feeling first' approach. 'We broke so many 'conventional pop' rules,' Mena says. Across Pure Luck, fleeting wins and devastating losses become two sides of the same coin—one still hanging in mid-air.

Pre-order/save Pure Luck here

Pure Luck Tracklist

1. Wind slicing hair

2. Black bear

3. I wanna be where you are

4. Hydro palette

5. Jamie

6. Angel's side

7. Page turn

8. Exit 100

9. Troublemakers

10. Xanadu

11. Curses and blessings

12. Passion for the void

Photo Credit: Alex Burholt