A small number of emerging icons is making waves in the UK, artists who challenge conventions with their music and maintain a captivating presence across various platforms that spark widespread interest. Among these is John Glacier, a London-based rapper, poet, and producer who has earned this distinction. After spending years captivating audiences in both mainstream and underground circles, John Glacier is set to release her debut album, Like A Ribbon, today through Young (The xx/Sampha/FKA twigs).
John Glacier’s Like A Ribbon is a very concise look at her life, measuring the lightning-fast trip from simple, sheltered Hackney to sharing her stories with the world in an extraordinary existence. Threads of relationships and obligations that seem almost infinite in their network and converge into the tapestry of contemporary life are deepened by executive producer Kwes Darko, sculpting the sonic landscape behind John’s story. Flume, Mk.gee cohort Andrew Aged, Surf Gang, Eartheater, Sampha and more delivered for the cause. Like A Ribbon re-presents the tale of modernity’s negotiation through a uniquely imaginative set of lenses.
Drawing from rap, electronic music, post-punk, and ambient, Glacier’s unique near stream-of-consciousness rapping is juxtaposed with “Like A Ribbon’s” 11 tracks of singular and immersive sound. Rhythmically cut into three sections—‘Like A Ribbon’, ‘Duppy Gun’ and ‘Angel’s Trumpet’—the album unfolds as a “book” of John’s uncanny love for fantastic story-telling tempered with just enough reality to let listeners draw their own cognitions and meanings well beyond the duration of the album.
Renowned for her work, the eagerly awaited vocalist whose strength intrigued many before the release of her first project SHILOH: Lost For Words, has brought the UK rap genre into a diaristic mode illuminating much of the mundane, the human and complex set of emotions all filtered through her defined phrasing and viewpoints. This artistic sensibility along with surrounding mythology had lured the fashion industry with John emerging as a key face in Daniel Lee’s coveted debut campaign for Burberry where she also wrote and performed bespoke poetry for Stone Island’s 2024/2025 campaign and features in advertisement for Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, J. W. Anderson and other such big brands. John Glacier’s first album, Like A Ribbon, allegedly enables her to explore expansive aspects of an immersive sound so personal that it always takes introspection and very abstract yet highly relatable. …While poetically recording the core of contemporary life as a Hackney youth at birth, within his ‘home base’, and venturing into a different reality.
After years of accolades in the underground and mainstream press for his unique, boundary-defying stream-of-consciousness style, London-based rapper, producer, and poet John Glacier prepares to release his debut album — the much-anticipated ‘Like A Ribbon’ — through Young (home to The xx, FKA twigs, and Sampha) on February 14th, 2025. ‘Like A Ribbon’ provides a dreamlike exploration of his journey from a mundane existence in Hackney to sharing stories with the world while attempting to hold onto some semblance of normality in an extraordinary existence. ‘Like A Ribbon’ threads together hip-hop, electronica, post-punk, and more across 11 wildly varied tracks — among them “Money Shows” (ft. Eartheater), “Steady As I Am,” “Cows Come Home,” and “Found.” Today marks the release of the final taster of the album’s rich sound-melting new single ‘Ocean Stepping’, which features the soulful radicalism of young artist Sampha.
Starting with chiming keys and Darko-sourced textures from producer Kwes Darko, a deceptively upbeat-feeling track features John's distinct flow as she muses on existing in her world, indifferent to people's opinions. As the song builds toward its rich and expansive culmination, Sampha contributes another beautifully freeform verse man, his vocal tones woven so deftly into the sonic tapestry that it becomes almost otherworldly. “Ocean Stepping” is a more positive cut from Glacier focussed on being true to oneself and one’s reality, rather than succumbing to the pull of others’ influences.
Directed by the notable Gabriel Moses, shot for his “Brothers Keeper” zine with i-D, this video is all John by himself, completely in the music against an understated yet wholly entrancing color scheme by Moses.
There’s John being himself. It’s that quality right there that always drew me to him in the first place – he’s such an individual and puts that vibe into his work. In my opinion, that’s what really makes an artist captivating.
The acclaimed vocalist, John Glacier, had work which was much anticipated and seized with much attention before the release of the debut project SHILOH: Lost For Words; and it is through this diaristic approach that redefines UK rap, giving more voice to the day-to-day experiences and complex emotions of life itself, all channeled through her singular phrasing and viewpoints. This sensibility around art and the rumors that cling to her have gotten the fashion world very interested in this figure who created bespoke poetry for Daniel Lee's spectacular debut campaign for Burberry. Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, even J.W. Anderson, and others have all fallen for her bait. Like a Ribbon is John Glacier's debut album that extends this immersive sound deep into her own mind's abstractions and concerns. Here, therefore, the LP gives us her poetic mode – voicing, from Hackney, the experiences of modern life as a young woman: still with connection to home yet existing somehow at a remove.
