Delhia de France, a melancholy alt-pop electronica producer and performer most known for her 2022 track “Home,” is featured on the fourth and last single, “Zima,” from Sultan & Shepard‘s upcoming album “Forever, Now.”
This was the very last song we finished for the album. For a long time, we thought it would be an instrumental, and we were ok with that as it felt very emotional for us. We had reached out to Delhia a ways back as we were big fans but hadn’t heard anything back. At the last minute, she came back and sent us a rough draft of her vocals over the song. We fell in love with it and spent some time going back and forth with her. We discovered she wasn’t just a great singer and writer, but also a great producer with fantastic vocal production that gave this song a unique edge. Her lyrics were dark and mysterious but beautiful and really fit the feeling we had of the initial idea. – Sultan + Shepard
The most recent sample of what to come sonically in “Forever, Now” is “Zima.”
Sultan + Shepard talks about their upcoming album Forever, Now
When we began working on ‘Forever, Now,’ the world had started to open up from the pandemic, we had begun touring again, and it felt like the great thawing of pent-up feelings and emotions were being released from us, and also all over the world. Some of these feelings were beautiful and emotional, others darker and messier. Most of this album was written during breaks between shows when we’re back in our studio but we still had this sense of energy moving, flowing, and being allowed to trickle into new places with new feelings.
Not surprisingly, a lot of the music leaned towards more joyful energy, bursting with positive emotions while most of the lyrics and vocals we had recorded with our collaborators were asking deeper questions about longing, separation, and time passing. It was a time of growth and positivity amidst general change and often chaos for the world but also for us personally.
The concept of “Forever, Now” grew out of this familiar feeling of being grounded in a place of creativity despite being in new places sonically or physically. We realized that wherever we went, there we were. Things were always moving and changing, as we ourselves were too. But through the act of being sincere in expressing our emotions, a sense of being in just the right place or hitting just the right note would often arise. – Sultan + Shepard
You can listen to “Zima” here, and you can pre-order the entire “Forever, Now” album here before it drops on February 17 via This Never Happened.
This winter, Sultan + Shepard will tour in support of “Forever, Now.” The 20+ date North American tour kicks off February 17 in Dallas and winds through cities including San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Denver, Montreal, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Seattle, New York City, Washington, DC, and Las Vegas, among others.
