“Sonic combat”: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith launches label with new album announcement

The record arrives alongside a video for its title piece, “Ruin”, which features pole dancer Pedro Esteveaqui, and follows a prolific 2025 that yielded both the electronic LP Gush and the orchestral mini-album Thoughts on the Future.

Smith co-founded Someone Special this year with James Daniel, and the new album will be its first release. In a statement, she said a shift towards heavier percussion came from a need to make something deliberately abrasive. “To make something confrontational, almost like sonic combat,” she said. “Ruin lives in that moment where everything breaks and something else asserts itself. It’s music for the shock and the aftershock. Sound designed for endurance rather than comfort.”

The move to a beat-driven register is a notable turn for an artist who built her reputation on the West Coast modular scene with albums like Ears and The Kid.

The announcement lands just days before Smith performs at London’s Barbican on 27 May, where she will appear with the London Contemporary Orchestra to mark the 10th anniversary of Ears. The concert is expected to draw heavily from that record.