Maddie Ashman Releases Double Single ‘Jaded / In Autumn My Heart Breaks’

Emerging British avant-pop artist and multi-instrumentalist Maddie Ashman has released a new double single, ‘Jaded / In Autumn My Heart Breaks,’ out now via AWAL.

Maddie Ashman’s rise has been fuelled by the kind of attention that arrives when an artist hits on something genuinely new. Her work has been praised for its mix of technical precision and emotional directness, a combination that places her at the forefront of experimental pop without losing the intimacy that first drew listeners in.

The two tracks sit in striking contrast. ‘Jaded’ folds glitched-out, microtonal breakbeats around a deeply personal narrative, while ‘In Autumn My Heart Breaks’ stretches out into a seven-minute, slow-burning piece built on choral arrangements and classical guitar. Together, they sketch out the breadth of Maddie’s musical world: restless, technically adventurous and quietly devastating.

Known for exploring microtonal music in uncanny yet accessible ways, Maddie explains that ‘Jaded’ hinges on a subtle, disorienting harmonic shift. “In this song I play with descending intonation, through a 4 chord repeating pattern,” she says. “The chords shift microtonally lower but seamlessly, so ‘something is going on, but I can’t put my finger on it’. To me it feels almost like the reality you trust and know has become blurry and unstable, like you’re holding on desperately but continuing to fall.”

‘In Autumn My Heart Breaks’ reaches back to her childhood singing in choirs, using pure intonation and layered voices to explore tension and release. “I wanted to write a song that gets higher and lower at the same time: in the first section the notes and pitches are getting higher and higher but the way it’s being tuned is getting lower and lower. I do the opposite later on in the song. It was a lot of maths, but I’m fascinated by how it feels to listen to and sing.”

The release follows her October breakout ‘I hate goodbyes’ and a European support run with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard on their EU Rave Tour, where she also joined the band on stage as a cellist. Away from the stage, Maddie has built a huge online audience this year through experimental home-recorded performances, amassing over 30 million views and more than 300,000 followers, with admirers including John Mayer, Sudan Archives, Bonobo, Jacob Collier, Caroline Polachek, Ólafur Arnalds and Sampha.