Glasgow’s Iona Zajac has announced details of her highly anticipated debut album, Bang, set for release on November 21st. Already known for her powerful songwriting and as a touring vocalist with legendary band The Pogues, Zajac has spent the last year building momentum on her own and with some of music’s most respected artists, including a return to the stage with The Pogues at iconic venues like Brixton’s O2 Academy.
The year proved to be a whirlwind for Zajac, who started 2025 by releasing her single “Summer” while supporting Alison Moyet on a sold-out, 25-date UK tour. She then shared the album’s title track, “Bang,” a sexually liberated celebration of pleasure, and later unveiled “Anton,” a raw and unflinching reflection on toxic relationships.
Now, Zajac offers a final glimpse into her record with the release of “Dilute,” one of the album’s most striking and surreal centrepieces. The track channels the disorienting logic of dreams, transforming fury into liberation. Together, these bold and uncompromising singles serve as a powerful introduction to the artistic vision found on her debut record.
Of the track, Zajac describes,
Dilute is the anchor of my first album, Bang. I sort of see the song as one of my weird dreams that I’m forcing into reality. Why can’t we run around with red faces, screaming at men who’ve wronged us? I see no issue. I see myself as a feral, strong woman in this song, and I want it to be one for women to find their anger and turn it into power and then one day maybe we can all meet up in a forest painted red and run through it holding hands screaming. Rise together from the warm black oil we’ve been dunked in! After I wrote the song my mum went to an exhibition and found Judy Chicago ‘Woman and Red Flares.’ I think she nailed it.
Across its eleven tracks, Bang captures the full emotional spectrum of Zajac’s voice as both a writer and performer. Influenced by the words of Maya Angelou and Emily Dickinson, as well as her own poetry, Zajac crafts a record that is as cathartic as it is empowering. It’s an album rooted in resilience and solidarity, but one that also embraces discomfort and the contradictions that make us human.
