Lola Bates launches her recording career with “Girl’s Girl,” the first single from her forthcoming debut album ‘Love and Power,’ due spring 2026 on Gravel and Echo Recordings, distributed by Virgin Music Group. Built on a hypnotic groove anchored by electric bass and drums, the track is dark, sultry, and emotionally layered, exploring loyalty, desire, and moral complexity through the lens of a three-person romantic entanglement. It is a bold opening statement from an artist who clearly knows exactly what she is doing.
Bates wrote the song as a direct creative challenge. “When my producing partner was keen on hearing a steady groove track on my debut album, I accepted and wrote ‘Girl’s Girl,'” she explains. “The groove leaves space for the vocal melody and harmonies to weave like a serpent through the song. It’s dark and sexy.” The result is a track that feels both carefully constructed and completely alive, the kind of debut single that reframes every expectation.
The single arrives with an art-forward music video co-produced by Bates alongside director Chandler Clamp and producer Isabel Mesko. Her involvement at every creative level, performance, songwriting, visual direction, signals an artist with full command of her own world. This is not an introduction managed by committee.
‘Love and Power’ was recorded between Bates’ Laurel Canyon studio and the legendary EastWest Studios in Los Angeles. Co-produced by Maxwell Joseph and engineered by Robert Carranza (Jack Johnson, Ozomatli), the album carries genuine pedigree. Executive producer Tyler Bates, whose credits include Jerry Cantrell and the John Wick franchise, co-founded Gravel and Echo Recordings alongside Carranza specifically to bring this project to life.
“A musician, writer, composer, and vocalist,” Tyler Bates says of Lola, “her journey in becoming a unique and authentic artist with the capability to perform at the top of her game, under extreme pressure, is absolutely inspiring.” On the strength of “Girl’s Girl” alone, that assessment holds up completely.