Roxanne de Bastion Drops Electric New Track ‘Simple Pleasures’
By Roxanne de Bastion
kick starts a brand-new era with a dystopian indie-electro-pop banger…
Same acute observations, bold new sound: the London-based artist swaps out deep introspection for angular riffs, distortion and dystopian decadence
Roxanne de Bastion – Simple Pleasures
OUT NOW (Thu 16 July 2026)
LIVE DATE – SEBRIGHT ARMS, LONDON – TUE 15 SEP 2026
Tickets On Sale Now HERE
www.roxannedebastion.com
As the world inches further toward dystopia, London-based singer, songwriter and acclaimed author, Roxanne de Bastion turns everything up a notch with her brand new single, Simple Pleasures – OUT NOW. Embarking on a new and unabashed era following the release of her deeply personal last album, 2021’s You & Me, We Are The Same, de Bastion combines gritty, instant earworm hooks with lyrics that toy with what it means to be human in a hyper-commercialised world.
Celebrating her emergence from vibrant writing and studio sessions, de Bastion also returns to the stage, setting up a special one night only showcase of new music alongside familiar fan favourites. Prior to the announcement of more live dates, she plays London’s Sebright Arms on Tue 15 September 2026. Tickets are on sale now via DICE.
Building in stature and reputation since emerging with her sophisto-pop 2017 debut album Heirlooms & Hearsay, de Bastion most recently felt the warmth of widespread critical and public praise for her 2024 book, The Piano Player Of Budapest. Confronting a remarkable family history, and beautifully portraying how music defines people, place and offers hope in the very darkest of hours, the book arrived alongside de Bastion’s restored recordings of her late grandfather’s songs.
Courageously facing the feelings of losing her father on her last album, the Berlin-born artist now walks into a bolder and seemingly weightless, mirrorball-lit future on Simple Pleasures. After committing so much of her own being to her previous projects, de Bastion audibly finds relief and release in the reckless realms of dialled-up, distorted, electro rock. Her gaze now turns outwards to a planet that rotates ever increasingly on an axis of excess, automation and novelty as the sonic influences of artists including St Vincent and Beck make themselves known.
“How much do we question whether we really need that upgrade or the latest version of the latest thing?” asks de Bastion. “’Simple Pleasures is a musing on our direction of travel as a species, walking the path from a human to an AI society and how we never seem to pay attention to the ‘man behind the curtain’. The song might be inspired by the dystopia we’re creating, but it’s also set to driving synth and angular guitar riffs: If we’re going out, we’re going out with a loud synth bang!”
Produced by hand-picked collaborator, the Music Producers Guild Writer-Producer of the Year and double Grammy-nominated Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, Picture Parlour, Jasmine.4.t, Nell Mescal), Simple Pleasures is a watershed moment before more promised ruptures in all expectations built around the songwriter over the last decade. The intensity associated with those ten, eventful years of personal loss, responding to the Covid pandemic and unexpectedly being the custodian of her grandfather’s legacy as The Piano Player Of Budapest, falls away for fun, bigger choruses and a beat you can dance to. This, the first fruit of de Bastion’s ‘post-grief phase’, is just the beginning.
Across her two critically acclaimed albums to date, de Bastion has earned career-defining, life-affirming on-air support from the great Iggy Pop on his 6 Music show, alongside regular support from indie’s original tastemaker, Steve Lamacq. Positive affirmations from critics of The Observer, NME, Record Collector and Rolling Stone have arrived in tandem with extensive touring, including support dates with kindred songwriting spirits, Lambchop, Bernard Butler, Martha Wainwright, Katie Melua, The Anchoress, Rumer and Howard Jones.
Beyond her music, de Bastion has also built a reputation as one of the UK’s most forward-thinking independent artists, notably reacting to the 2020 lockdown by being the first artist to live stream an entire gig for an online audience. Such proactive innovation is evocative of her ability to build positivity into otherwise lost causes, part of the same us versus dystopia perspective that defines the Simple Pleasures dogma.
For further information and to be the first to know about future release and live dates, connect with Roxanne de Bastion online at: