“Utican, and its accompanying video, is an emotional rollercoaster." - Steffanee Wang

As Novo Amor Welsh singer Ali Lacey makes achingly tender folk music backboned by his airy, falsetto vocals. He's gearing up to release his debut studio album Birthplace, set to drop on October 19 via the London record label AllPoints. Today, he shares a new cut from the project, "Utican," a heart-racing, jubilant cut that stops, goes and rests — as if Lacey was running sprints when he made this song. It's these abrupt changes in pacing that breathe a sense of life into the track that's only further heightened by the accompanying video. It features the relationship between a young person and their father, both going through a big, and important moment of growth together — if that explanation feels super vague, it's because you should watch the video to get the full emotional effect.

"Being one of the most up-beat, celebratory tracks that I’ve ever made, 'Utican' represents a proud and immediate realisation of growing up," Ali Lacey writes of the song and video over email. "The name ‘Utican’ calls to the idea of becoming a resident of Utica, a place that slowly started to feel homely to me. The song is not at all about the city, but a period of my life, which in hindsight shaped a lot of my early 20s."