BK Pepper’s second album ‘Pagan’ is out now on London-based independent label Bigo & Twigetti, and it arrives as one of the more compelling orchestral releases on the 2026 calendar. The follow-up to 2020’s ‘Territories’ finds the Irish composer and producer working at a significantly expanded scale, collaborating with renowned violinist Viktor Orri Árnason, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and Ireland’s Glasshouse Ensemble to build something that moves between cinematic orchestration and deeply intimate layered textures throughout its ten tracks. Listen here.
The album’s central concept is built around belief itself, what it looks like when religious, political, or personal systems of conviction begin to fracture. “I was drawn to the idea of the pagan as someone outside the dominant narrative, someone questioning, resisting or searching,” Pepper explains. “At its core, the album asks whether we can rediscover shared humanity in an era that constantly pushes us into tribes.” It’s a wide-angle lens on something deeply personal, and the music reflects that dual ambition, feeling both collective and intimate depending on where you’re standing inside it.
Alongside the album comes the latest single “Brother Sister,” an emotionally charged orchestral piece led by intertwining vocals and violin that sits at the emotional heart of the record. Árnason’s string work brings what Pepper describes as “raw and fragile honesty” to the track, and the vocal delivery was deliberately left exposed to match that vulnerability. “There is tension in it, but also deep loyalty,” Pepper says. “It feels like a conversation between closeness and distance, which is something many of us recognise in our own relationships.” It’s a quiet devastator of a track, the kind that rewards a careful listen in a room with the lights down.
The Irish Times awarded ‘Pagan’ four out of five stars, calling it “edgier, more cinematic” than its predecessor. Total Entertainment described it as “expansive and deeply human.” Both assessments track. Pepper has been working across film, theatre, animation, and gaming alongside his album work, with his score for ‘Swing Bout’ receiving a cinema release in 2024 and heading to Apple TV later this year. ‘Pagan’ sits apart from all of that, a fully realized artistic statement that demands attention on its own terms.
‘Pagan’ is out now on all major streaming platforms via Bigo & Twigetti.
‘Pagan’ Tracklist:
- Pagan
- Flora & Fauna
- Brother Sister
- Common Ground
- Weighing It Up
- So You Know
- You’re Not Alone
- Older
- I Follow
- I Love You