Matilda Mann releases sophomore album ‘Kismet’

London-based singer-songwriter Matilda Mann releases her highly anticipated sophomore album Kismet alongside focus track ‘Chain Reaction’.

Where much of Kismet sits with the quieter textures of love – its steadiness, its griefs, its everyday beauty – ‘Chain Reaction’ is the record at its most unguarded: the head-rush of falling for someone with no warning. It’s built around the kind of runaway feeling that arrives unannounced, and refuses to be talked down.

Speaking on the track, she explains:

“Love really does come when you least expect it, it’s one of the most annoying truths I’ve come to learn. You’re finally settled in your life and then suddenly, out of the blue comes this rush of adrenaline, joy, addiction for a person you’ve just met. Nothing can prevent it or control it and I think that’s why love is the most written about thing ever. We all feel it, but nobody gets a say over who we fall in love with and when, and I think that’s pretty beautiful.”

Matilda Mann has always been a little superstitious. There are, she has said, too many coincidences in the world not to be – a belief that gives Kismet, her aptly-titled second album, its foundation and its title. The 11-track record arrives 18 months on from her acclaimed debut Roxwell, and was written from a place of hard-won peace and stability, putting to bed the idea that meaningful art has to come from pain. Where Roxwell was, in her words, “a wonderful mess” – capturing relationships ending, homes changing, and the emotional uncertainty of her early twenties – Kismet is its counterpart: the sound of an artist who has found her footing, writing from the bliss of being newly in love and the quiet beauty of chosen people.

That arc runs through the album’s singles so far. Leading track ‘Inventing’ surpassed 1 million streams within three weeks of release and racked up 400k TikTok creations and 1 billion views, and its follow up ‘Bittersweet’ was premiered as Radio 1’s Hottest Record. ‘Haunt Me’ sits with grief and the fear of losing the people she loves most, choosing to find them instead in the everyday – “the birds, sunsets, air” as she puts it. ‘The Fig Tree’ borrows a metaphor from Sylvia Plath to wrestle with the paralysis of choice, ‘After The Love’ channels a 70s style pop-hook and her signature smooth vocals, while ‘Make Up’ finds her turning over all the small details of a relationship, and arriving at a quiet certainty that everything is going to be fine.

It’s a directness Matilda traces back to one of her biggest lyrical influences, Al Green: “I love how vulnerable and direct he is. He’ll simply sing, ‘I love you,’ and he’ll make it sound so poetic and beautiful.” Across Kismet, that same plainness sits alongside a rich moodboard of 70s soul and soft-rock – Green, Bill Withers, Carole King and The Carpenters alongside contemporary touchstones like Natalie Bergman and The Marías – recorded with remarkable ease and speed at collaborator Jonah Summerfield’s North London studio.

Mann’s route here has been anything but linear. Raised in Shepherd’s Bush, she found her way to lyric-writing long before she understood songwriting as a craft, working through flute, violin, piano and drums before guitar finally stuck. A place at BRIT School, alongside classmates including Cat Burns and Eloise, gave a stage-shy teenager the nerve to imagine herself as an artist rather than just a writer for others. Four EPs and a runner-up finish in Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition followed, along with support slots for Tom Odell, Role Model, Laufey and Wallows, and a sold-out headline show at London’s KOKO on the back of Roxwell. To celebrate the new album, Matilda will embark on an acoustic in-store tour in September, as well as a full tour across the UK in October. Full itinerary below and tickets HERE.

For all its warmth, Kismet’s optimism is a deliberate choice rather than a naive one. Matilda has spoken about wanting to make space for joy in an album that runs counter to a very British instinct toward self-deprecation – “I understand the idea of finding escapism in art is innately privileged, but I hope this album can allow listeners to be selfish for a moment.”

2026 Tour Dates

4th September – Brighton – Resident Records
6th September – Edinburgh – Assai Records
7th September – Liverpool – Rough Trade
8th September – Nottingham – Rough Trade
9th September – Rough Trade East
12th September – Amsterdam – Concerto Record Store
13th September – Paris – Balades Sonores
14th September – Berlin – Rough Trade
9th October – Manchester – Academy2
10th October – Newcastle – University
11th October – Glasgow – Oran Mor Auditorium
13th October – Bristol – The Trinity Centre
14th October – Birmingham – O2 Institute 2
16th October – London – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire