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Rumia Releases Sophomore Album Old Enough to Save Myself, Blending Trip-Hop, Acoustic Warmth, and Deep Personal Reflection
Rising alternative artist Rumia has released her long-anticipated second album, Old Enough to Save Myself, a bold and introspective project that explores themes of identity, family, and personal growth through a unique blend of melancholic trip-hop and warm acoustic textures.
The 12-track album, produced by renowned Spanish producer Manuel Colmenero, marks a significant evolution in Rumia’s sound and songwriting. Drawing influence from 90s icons like Radiohead and Mazzy Star, as well as contemporary voices including Lana del Rey and Phoebe Bridgers, the project weaves between analog intimacy and electronic ambiance.
Sung in both English and Spanish, Old Enough to Save Myself showcases Rumia’s bilingual lyricism and emotional range. The album’s centerpiece, “Kept All the Pain,” is a haunting trip-hop ballad that addresses generational trauma and emotional silence, anchored by the poignant line: “Wasn’t in my power to save them / If known, I would’ve saved myself.”
“The heart of this album is about healing,” Rumia shared in a recent statement. “It’s about breaking cycles, letting go of what hurt, and realizing I’m no longer responsible for saving anyone but myself.”
Additional standout tracks include “Shift In The Air,” an atmospheric reflection on change and uncertainty, and “Role Model,” a powerful track accompanied by a visually stunning music video released alongside the album.
Now based in Berlin, Rumia credits the city’s music scene for influencing her shift toward more experimental, genre-blending production. Old Enough to Save Myself follows the critical success of her 2022 debut album Forget Me Not, which earned her accolades from outlets including Earmilk and Fame Magazine, and secured multiple international awards for original songwriting and lyricism.
With Old Enough to Save Myself, Rumia further cements her reputation as one of the most emotionally honest and stylistically versatile voices in the alternative scene. The album is now available on all major streaming platforms.
We Speak Music
Michele Ducci teases new album with uplifting indie single ‘Woman Like You’
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.

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