Adja Fassa Releases Bold Debut Album Golden Retrieve Her: A Soulful, Satirical Exploration of Society

Brussels-based artist Adja Fassa has officially released her long-awaited debut album Golden Retrieve Her, a striking follow-up to her critically acclaimed EP IRONEYE (2022). With this ambitious 11-track project, Adja steps fully into her power as a storyteller, vocalist, and sonic explorer.

Two years in the making, Golden Retrieve Her dives deep into the emotional and societal undercurrents of modern life, offering up intimate stories shaped by capitalism's grip on our private moments. Adja crafts dystopian neo-soul scenes where Deliveroo drivers are stalked by telemarketers selling dreams, transforms jazz standards into critiques of transactional relationships, and even delivers a cheeky anti-establishment anthem with “Sucking on my Emphatitties.”

At the heart of the album is the title track, “Golden Retrieve Her” — a metaphor-laden meditation on the pressure to conform to the ideal of the "perfect" nuclear family.

"It’s a wordplay on retrieving my kindness in a violent social system," Adja explains. "We're asked to be naive or pretend to be. The Golden Retriever became a symbol of the polished life we’re sold as success."

Each track is rich in sonic texture and narrative complexity, guided by Adja’s deep collaboration with jazz guitarist and composer Alexis Nootens, and shaped by producers Adam Scrimshire (named one of the UK’s top soul producers by The Guardian) and Koen Gisen, a fixture in the Belgian music scene.

Adding a mystical edge to the album, Adja designed four tarot cards that thematically mirror the music:

• The Wheel of Fortune: The struggle for control in an unfair system

• The Mirror: Reflection and recognition in lost relationships

• The Dark Wheel: A descent into moral chaos

• The Cave: A return to self—painful, but honest

Recorded with 13 musicians, including 8 session players from across Europe, the album is a genre-bending journey rooted in soul, jazz, experimental pop, and rich lyrical philosophy.

Golden Retrieve Her is out now on Sdban Ultra — available via streaming, vinyl (with collectible tarot cards), and CD.

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Tracklist:

1. Happiness and Butterflies

2. Package Delivered by Tomorrow

3. A Moment

4. Unfriend

5. Better Bitter

6. The Sound of a Mother (interlude)

7. Sucking on my Emphatitties

8. Golden Retrieve Her

9. Be Patient (outro)

10. Nook

11. Rest our Hearts

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