HOLLIE COOK BLOOMS WITH RADIANT INTIMACY ON SHY GIRL
Hollie Cook’s fifth studio album, Shy Girl, brings her full circle to Brighton imprint Mr Bongo, nearly fifteen years after her debut there. Yet this is far from nostalgia. Instead, it’s a luminous journey into love, identity, and vulnerability, delivered with ease and a sense of quiet courage.
The title track, which opens the album, distils its heart. It’s a buoyant, elastic slice of lovers rock, brimming with warmth and understated charisma. Cook wrote it in a burst of instinct at Relic Room Studios in New York, then shaped its final layers in Echo Park, Los Angeles, capturing a sense of its natural flow and wanderlust.
“I’m not a natural show-off,” she admits. “The Shy Girl theme is me. It’s just about being my most vulnerable self and being as true to the music that I love as possible.”
WITH SHY GIRL, HOLLIE COOK OFFERS A STRIKING PORTRAIT OF HER ARTISTRY
For three shimmering minutes, guitars glisten over a groove-heavy, dub-infused bassline, with organ flourishes bubbling beneath. Cook’s soft, breezy vocals invite the listener closer, urging openness and connection. It’s both a statement of self and a signature mark of the ‘tropical pop’ sound she has made her own.
With Shy Girl, Hollie Cook offers a striking portrait of her artistry, honest and unguarded.
ABOUT HOLLIE COOK
Hollie Cook crafts a luminous blend of lovers rock, dub, and tropical pop, where West London’s sound system lineage meets post-punk echoes. From her formative years with The Slits to a solo path defined by albums like Twice and Happy Hour in Dub, she threads warmth through shimmering, dubwise textures.
Collaborating with voices like Mykal Rose and Jah9, Cook turns reggae’s traditions into living, breathing dialogues between eras, places, and possibilities.
