XANIMAL have released their second single, and it lands in a completely different sonic space than their debut. “The Awakening,” featuring Austin collaborator Nagavalli, is a downtempo trip-hop track that weaves hypnotic tablas, lush atmospheric synths and funky breakbeats into something that feels genuinely cinematic. It’s available now on Bandcamp via New Human Music, with wider digital release on April 21.
The Austin-based trio, Claude McCan, Noëlle Hampton and Ken Christensen, built this one around a deliberate emotional shift. Their debut single ‘Love Axis’ leaned into bright 80s synth-pop energy. This track goes darker, more searching, and the addition of Nagavalli’s Eastern Soul vocals gives it a dimension the group couldn’t have reached on their own. Hampton’s lead vocals carry disillusionment and loss; Nagavalli’s layered vocalizations push the track toward something closer to transcendence. The contrast works.
“She is truly magical and brings so much emotion and expression with her singing,” says Hampton of Nagavalli. “With her vocals, our vision was complete.” McCan adds that the track pulls from deep in his musical history while reflecting the emotional weight of the current moment, a pivot from an earlier disco-influenced direction that no longer fit what the project needed to say.
The video, created by Fumihito Sugawara of Fumanstudios (who also designed the cover artwork), matches the track’s meditative intensity. God Is In The TV Zine called it “electro-pop with a passport and a pulse,” and that reads exactly right. XANIMAL aren’t chasing a lane. They’re carving one.
“The Awakening” is mastered by Max Lorenzen at Rare Ear Studio. More releases from XANIMAL are expected later this year.