Brooklyn's Blue Mena announces new album Pure Luck with double single

The news follows last month's “Black bear” single. “Jamie” opens a two-part love story inspired by James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, with Mena inhabiting the novel’s conflicted protagonist, David. Mena said “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.” The self-directed video was shot by Mena in New York.

Of “Troublemakers”, Mena said “This is my favourite songwriting on the album”, adding that it is about “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.”

Pure Luck was written between Brooklyn, LA backhouses, XL Recordings’ Manhattan studio, and Upstate New York. The album follows Multi Adolescence and the gums EP, and draws on Mena’s jazz guitar background and New York queer nightlife. “These songs are less about romantic love than everything surrounding it, the circumstances that make love feel so fleeting, random, and unsolvable.”

Pure Luck artwork

Pure Luck tracklist

“Wind slicing hair”
“Black bear”
“I wanna be where you are”
“Hydro palette”
“Jamie”
“Angel’s side”
“Page turn”
“Exit 100”
“Troublemakers”
“Xanadu”
“Curses and blessings”
“Passion for the void”