Iona Zajac shares debut album ‘Bang’ via Post Electric
Bang album cover
Selected as Bandcamp's Album of the Day
“Her debut album is unbridled, arresting, and completely commanding" - Far Out Magazine★★★★
“This debut proves the Glaswegian songstress has far more strings to her bow… an accomplished songwriter in her own right.” - Hot Press ★★★★
On her debut album, "Bang", Iona Zajac presents a bold and varied collection of songs ranging from rockers to poignant ballads. - Irish Daily Star ★★★⯪
"[Bang] marks the arrival of a captivating talent" - The Irish Independent
“Bang is a great album, but more crucially, it’s an important one.” The Line of Best Fit ★★★★
“A batch of dark, classy songs" - The List
“Bang is a powerful piece of personal witness-bearing - standing tall, feeling stronger.” Mojo ★★★★
"Bang is a truly original debut album that burns bright with emotion and wild imagination, confirming Zajac as one of Scotland's most fearless and intriguing new voices." - The Skinny Album of the Month ★★★★
Today, Iona Zajac releases her debut album Bang, a deeply emotive, darkly imaginative and fiercely self-possessed collection from one of Scotland’s most compelling new artists.
Already praised by critics, Bang is earning early acclaim for its visceral storytelling and unflinching clarity. “Bang is a truly original debut album that burns bright with emotion and wild imagination, confirming Zajac as one of Scotland's most fearless and intriguing new voices” wrote The Skinny, while Mojohailed it as “a powerful piece of personal witness-bearing, standing tall, feeling stronger.” The Irish Independent added that it “marks the arrival of a captivating talent.”
Having supported Alison Moyet, Lankum, Hamish Hawk, and Lisa O’Neill, Zajac also stepped into the spotlight with The Pogues’, joining them initially in their Christmas 40-year anniversary show of their debut Red Roses For Me at Dublin's 3 Arena, Zajac has continued to perform with The Pogues across tours for the UK, US, and now scheduled to join them in Australia this coming March/April 2026 for the continued run of the 40th anniversary shows for their sophomore, Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, even set to perform two dates at the Sydney Opera House. Working with the Pogues has seen Iona perform to heaving crowds at The Barrowlands, Brixton Academy, NYC's Terminal 5, and beyond, earning new fans for her intense solo performances. Armed with her guitar, her intoxicating voice and a growing reputation for unforgettable live shows, she has become one of Scotland's talked-about emerging songwriters.
Bang moves between shadow and clarity, intimacy and confrontation – a body of work shaped by surreal humour, emotional candour and a refusal to look away. Produced with taut minimalism and a raw sonic edge, the album blends alt-folk, spectral pop and jagged rock textures while showcasing Zajac’s striking lyrical voice.
Touching on power, boundaries, anger, desire and the strange dreamscapes that shape memory, Bang is both an unburdening and a reclamation. It’s a record that explores how we process harm, how we protect ourselves, and how we transform heaviness into something alive, electric and defiantly human.
Bang is available everywhere now via Post Electric and can be purchased here
Iona Zajac live
23rd Nov - Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh (Co-headline w/ Robin Kester)
24th Nov - The Hug & Pints, Glasgow (Co-headline w/ Robin Kester)
27th November - The Social, London - (Headline)
25th March - Fremantle Prison, Freemantle, Aus (playing with The Pogues)
17th March - Hindley St Music Hall, Adelaide, Aus (playing with The Pogues)
29th March - The Forum, Melbourne, Aus - (playing with The Pogues)
2nd April - Byron Bay, Bluesfest, Aus - (playing with The Pogues)
3rd April - Byron Bay, Bluesfest, Aus - (playing with The Pogues)
5th April - Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Aus - (playing with The Pogues)
6th April - Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Aus - (playing with The Pogues)
8th April - St James Theatre, Wellington, N (playing with The Pogues)
9th April - Christchurch Town Hall, NZ - (playing with The Pogues)
11th April - NZICC Theatre, Auckland, NZ (playing with The Pogues)
Bang tracklisting
Bowls
Bang
Dilute
Summer
End of the Year
Anton
Salt
Chicken Supermarket
Murder Mystery
Ridiculous Hat
Loving is Rough
Bang bio
There’s an unwavering resilience coursing through Bang, the masterful debut album from Iona Zajac. This is evident in the Scottish singer-songwriter's astute articulations of the anger she felt whilst reflecting on personal and global experiences centred on the abuse of women: “Ask her, ask us all,” she intones in the atmospheric opener, ‘Bowls’. From there, Zajac confronts the emotional impact of toxic relationships and emerges with a renewed sense of worth which abounds. As well as untangling trauma, Bang is an exhilarating celebration of womanhood steered by the enduring influence of Maya Angelou and Emily Dickinson as Zajac delivers an unfiltered portrait of strength. Visceral in its message and delivery, Bang is an essential body of work that not only introduces audiences to Iona Zajac’s commanding voice, but provides a collective expression for women with shared experiences.
Exploring Bang’s themes, and her approach to writing the songs, Zajac explains: “I don't think I necessarily approached this album with a plan, but if you look at songs like ‘Bowls’, ‘Dilute’ and ‘Anton’, they're like sisters in different stages of processing something bad. They were written in very different periods, ‘Bowls’ expresses a more general feeling of anger about violence towards women. While ‘Dilute’ came from my own experiences as a teenager and ‘Anton’ more specifically hones in on stories of relationships and intimacy. They’re the heaviness that anchors the album that exist alongside playful moments that I hoped would provide a thread of how surreal a lot of my ways of processing things are. I think it's a very Scottish thing, processing sadness through humour.”
Zajac’s humour casts a cathartic lightness in Bang’s excellently cultivated equilibrium. As much as lived experiences inform her lyrics, Zajac weaves surrealist narratives into her songs inspired by dream sequences that she has logged over the years. ‘Chicken Supermarket’ is one example of how her subconscious places her in unexpected situations such as taking magic mushrooms with Billy Connolly and being surrounded by a sea of jelly. The brightness in Zajac’s irresistible personality is felt in the exuberant pop numbers scattered through the album. The LP’s title track is, as Zajac notes, “A celebration of sex for the sake of sex and a rejection of the slut shaming culture of my teens.” Tonally, this uptempo arrangement, which is further bolstered by the brightly melodic ‘Murder Mystery’, is steered by infectious guitar tones heralding Angel Olsen’s more textured pop-fused rock sensibilities and provide a perfect counter to Bang’s sparser and sombre moments. This tonal dexterity culminates in an immensely rewarding and comprehensive album that keenly incorporates the various shades and emotions that so often colour a young woman’s formative years.
Zajac’s motivation to be so frank in her songwriting is spurred by her desire for women to see themselves outlined in her arresting words. To have their own similar experiences illuminated and heard. “It’s very important as a female artist that I appeal to young women with my work,” Zajac says. “I write a lot about my own experiences; the good, the bad and the ugly. I mostly write with a nuanced hand but also lean into being necessarily on the nose. I had some bad experiences as a teenager and one of the most therapeutic ways of dealing with this has been through songwriting. There’s an angry song that I play live and I can’t count the amount of young women that have approached me afterwards, often emotional, about how that song spoke of their experience, too. That’s what it’s all about to me; reaching out to people and leaving them with something to think about. As a recording artist I feel a responsibility to speak to, and speak out for others, and hopefully in turn empower, and shake things up a bit.”
Building these intimate spaces in her songs, Zajac melds a mesmerizing palette of rumbling percussion, radiant casio motifs and bursts of invigorating driving electric guitar which brings a considered dynamism to Bang’s multi-faceted character. Across these texturally rich arrangements, Zajac’s vocals endlessly impress with how she seamlessly shifts between introspection and striking exclamations. The album’s emotive climax, ‘Loving Is Rough’ hears Zajac’s cadence effectively layered with a chorus of female voices woven together, united in their collective plea. This enduring closing statement heralds Zajac’s appreciation for female-group singing ensembles such as the Warsaw Village Band and The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir, echoing her Polish/Ukrainian heritage.
The strength in her voice has been honed over the last few years during which Zajac has been perfecting her craft on stage as she joined several acclaimed artists such as Mercury Rev, Arab Strap, Lankum, John Francis Flynn, Anna B Savage, Cassandra Jenkins. More recently, Zajac was invited to open for, and sing with, The Pogues in Dublin and is preparing to go on tour with Alison Moyet in 2025. Whilst developing her assertive voice on the road, she conscientiously gathered material for her debut LP, choosing songs that would provide a comprehensive distillation of the last fifteen years of her life.
That power is essential in striking a perfect balance of light and dark narratives drawn from stark realities and a desire to find escapism in the surreal. Zajac expands on her unique world building which is very much inspired by her poems and dreams: “I do a lot of writing where I’m trying to not think about the material becoming a song. I found that my poems were very much to do with certain affects or emotions of the everyday, capturing the kind of sensory experience of very mundane tasks or interactions. They were about those feelings rather than storytelling, and about obscure discomforts and really enjoying the juxtaposition of disgust and desire. I enjoy trying to embrace discomfort. I would pick out lines from different poems of mine and bring them together to create quite a strange mix of things."
Working with producer Dani Bennett-Spragg in Post Electric Studio in Edinburgh, Zajac – with the backing of her band featuring Joe Taylor (drums), Ellie Mason (electric guitar, synths) and Ben Manning (bass) – drew from a rich tapestry of influences such as Sibylle Baier, PJ Harvey and Portishead weave a magnificent blend of intimate acoustic-led instrumentation with exuberant full-band numbers. The broad tonal and melodic palette across these eleven enveloping songs marks an impressive and assured statement from the singer-songwriter. Bang’s captivating essence is elevated by Zajac’s commanding presence as she delivers these stirring songs with great intensity and feeling. Her impassioned live performances, which erupt with personality, have been effectively captured in these recordings and are crucial to Bang’s infectious energy and extraordinary depth. These details further demonstrate Zajac’s deft and remarkably assured artistry, one that successfully announces her as an extremely vital voice.
Since releasing her debut EP Find Her in The Grass in 2022, Zajac has continued to experiment with her lyrical and musical identity. Grounded by her years playing Clarsach Harp, she more recently embraced new modes of expression by teaching herself to play the guitar. Whilst living in Glasgow during lockdown, she became engrossed in this new fascination, enjoying the melodic limitations on a new instrument in those early weeks and months. During this period, she revisited The Salt I Have Produced, a book of poetry she produced in university for her dissertation in creative writing. Those texts articulated Zajac’s harder experiences with a beguiling beauty and abstracted perspectives that originated in her dreams. In this regard, she conjures an otherworldly and enveloping essence in her songwriting that was evident in Find Her in The Grass and continues to flourish across Bang.
Bang takes Iona Zajac’s writing into a new realm; a place where she no longer runs from herself or her past. “It’s a big thing to release a debut album, especially one that’s so personal and heavily loaded. I’m definitely ready to unleash the beast, it’s not weighing me down anymore. It's thanks to these songs for helping me let things go.”
