British DJ and singer-songwriter SG Lewis released his third studio album “Anemoia” on September 5, 2025 via Positiva and his own label Forever Days Records.
This marks his first album in two years since the 2023 album “AudioLust & HigherLove”.
This album comprises 10 tracks, featuring guest appearances from British indie pop band London Grammar, London-based DJ Shygirl, London-based singer-songwrite Rahh, British DJ TEED, British singer-songwriter Frances, and British singer and bassist Oliver Sim.
Produced by SG Lewis, London Grammar, J Moon, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Julian Bunetta.
He recorded the album at his studio at the end of the garden of his home in London.
SG Lewis said, “This is the first album I have made at home in London, in my studio at the end of the garden. Most of the collaborations happened by inviting friends over, drinking lots of coffee and throwing stuff at the wall until magic appeared.”
The album title “Anemoia” means nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known.
He said, “When I discovered the word Anemoia, it articulated a feeling I'd struggled to describe for so long - a nostalgia for times I never lived through.”
He continued, “This album is rooted in the dancefloor, and even its quieter moments are shaped by Balearic sounds that are influenced from spending a lot of time in Ibiza last summer. I think a lot of the music carries an undertone of melancholy, even when it feels high in energy. More than anything, I want Anemoia to be a soundtrack to living in the present - to creating the kind of moments that others might one day feel nostalgic for.”
SG Lewis said, “I have always felt connected musically to periods of time gone by - whether it be 70's New York, 90's Ibiza or the acid house explosion. Times where music and culture have collided in ways so massive, it left the world changed forever. Like so many of us, I've always dreamt about what it might have been like to live through those times.”
He continued, “Anemoia is the aural projection of that dream. The feelings of nostalgia I have for all these different times and places, boiled down into my fantasy sound track for a hypothetical dance floor. I want this album to accompany the moments of today, so that one day people might look back and feel Anemoia about what we experience right now.”
SG Lewis explained track-by-track for the album via Apple Music.
“Memory” “I knew that the word 'anemoia' is not a familiar word. I didn't know what it meant before I Googled it, and also that no one knows how to pronounce it. So I wanted to build a track that was like a sonic introduction to the world which the album was going to inhabit, but then also be able to put on some audio that would introduce people to the concept of anemoia because it was not self-explanatory. The whole purpose of 'Memory' is just to introduce people to the feeling of the album—the euphoria, and this kind of bittersweetness, the chords, the sound—and also the literal concept.”
“Feelings Gone” featuring London Grammar “For years I had this instrumental that I'd started in LA with my friend, J Moon. It was something that I was playing in DJ sets, and it had this feeling which was like bittersweet, but also the build of it and the drums having a slightly Balearic feeling to them. It was the first thing I made that I was like, 'Oh, this is like the sound of the album…' But the only voice I could hear on it in my head was Hannah's [Hannah Reid of London Grammar]. There's a depth to her voice and her songwriting that adds such emotional weight. Sometimes, dance music, especially pop dance music, can feel disposable but I just felt that Hannah and the band would really create a track that had depth. Rather than referencing what was happening in '90s Ibiza, 'Feelings Gone' is my projection. If I was looking at those photos, what's playing in my head?”
“Sugar” featuring Shygirl “Shygirl and I started this song on the same day that we started 'mr useless,' which was a song that we did for her project [2024's Club Shy EP]. So we had this other demo and I got Shygirl down and we finished off the song structure and stuff, and then TEED [Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs] added the synth line. We really wanted 'Sugar' to feel like one of those 2000s Hedkandi, '90s trance, super-pop dance records where they're just like an overflow of serotonin and joy—for every decision to be very bright and very pop.”
“Transition” featuring RAHH “The summer that ended up making this album exist, I spent a lot of time in Ibiza and I played Pacha I lot. It's the oldest club on the island, it has so much history. There's a sound of Pacha and it's this 2000s, super-compressed drums, funky basslines, French Touch—I wanted to create a song that is a nod to that. I'd heard RAHH on a couple of records so we got together, and she's an incredible songwriter. She is able to deliver these vocals that have the power and soul of a classic house vocal, but it's not delivered in a way that feels like pastiche. A lot of the album leans more into that kind of bittersweetness. I love that feeling, but when I sat back and listened to everything, I wanted a record that did the opposite. 'Transition' is a call to arms, the kind of dance record that I play out at peak times.”
“Devotion” featuring TEED “TEED is one of my best friends in the world, but he still remains a musical hero of mine. He is someone I get a lot of help and advice from, so it only felt right to have him collaborate on the album. This was an instrumental we started together. We tried a bunch of different ideas and vocals, and eventually, I was like, 'Why don't you just sing on it?' It's very euphoric in a classic '90s piano house way. When I think of acid house and the UK rave movement scene, I think about those '90s rave piano tracks. It doesn't matter where you are or how long you've been playing, when you reach that piano breakdown, the sound of those beats coming in provides such a moment of lights-on euphoria.”
“Past Life” “This is really a breather in what is otherwise a very dance-oriented album. In any album or extended format like this, I do think that a change in tempo is a relief. So I wrote this hook that induced a sort of dreamlike state. The whole thing is supposed to be from the perspective of someone dreaming about another time in the past and what that might've been like. Just creating a moment of reflection and a sonic change from the pace and euphoria of the rest of the album.”
“Back of My Mind” “I use my vocal in a way that is a lot more direct and front-on than I have done in the past—there's less reverb, less effects—and I think that there's a story and a deep emotion to it. All my favorite club music has that element. Whether it's Robyn, 'Dancing on My Own' or Kings of Tomorrow, 'Finally,' those songs are designed for the club and an environment that's very hedonistic and kind of momentary, but they have a depth and a story, and I think that gives them the longevity and the purpose. The initial idea was less dance-y—it came from listening to Radiohead, the verse was very meandering, kind of like Thom Yorke, trying to be cool—and it was like the euphoria got added and it got beefed up. Now that I'm playing it live, I can see people connecting to the lyrics. I hadn't heard that phrase used in a dance record but it's a very universal feeling.”
“Another Place” featuring Frances “Frances is a long-term collaborator of mine, we went to university together. She's primarily a songwriter now, and we did some great songs for this record, but she's so musically gifted and has the most incredible vocal so I asked her if she would feature on this. I really wanted to create the end-of-night, 4 am, sort of slight comedown, emotional breakbeat song. The 'Think' break [the much-sampled drum break topped with 'Woo! Yeah!' from Lyn Collins' 'Think (About It)'] is sampled in this. I wanted to trigger that feeling of anemoia for people who aren't tuned in to the names of different breaks where they're like, 'Where do I know this from?' and because it's such an iconic break and so synonymous with rave and dance music, the 'Think' break does that for a lot of people. I think that's a fun emotion to play with.”
“Fallen Apart” “I wrote the original six years ago, very quickly, after someone that I worked with really hurt my feelings. It was like a note that I'd written down, just like, 'I'm not going to forget that' and it sat on my hard drive for ages but there was never really a home for it. I played it to TEED, and we spent a day working on it, beefing it up and turning it into what it became. It's funny because it sounds like a romantic breakup song, and I think, eventually, I changed some of the lyrics to allow it to resonate in that way, but it really came from a platonic falling out.”
“Baby Blue” featuring Oliver Sim “I met Oliver in LA when I was working on this record and we did two sessions—one for my album, one for his. We didn't come away with songs we wanted to put out, but we immediately got on well. I had this instrumental I'd worked on with my friend Karma Kid, and we just spent a day trying to make these end-of-night, disco-edit kind of instrumentals. I found this sample, Wess Machine, 'Hard Luck' and the intro just had this two-bar loop. I resampled it and added elements to it, made it work in a modern club setting. I sent it to Oliver, and he was out but said, 'Give me five minutes…' Five minutes later, he sends a voice note and he'd written the hook. He was like, 'I just went in the toilet and wrote this.' I was gobsmacked. So then he came down to my garden and we recorded it. Wrote a little verse and it was done. His voice is so warm and rich and beautiful. He's a very special human being.”
