Chicago-based composer and songwriter Gia Margaret has announced a new album, Singing, due April 24 via Jagjaguwar, marking her first full vocal record since 2018’s There’s Always Glimmer. To introduce it, she’s shared a quietly striking lead single and video, “Everyone Around Me Dancing,” a song that captures her singular ability to turn distance and restraint into emotional gravity.
The track unfolds from the margins of a party scene. Rather than chasing release or spectacle, Margaret positions herself as an observer, tracing the tension between wanting to belong and choosing stillness instead. Soft piano phrases move at an unhurried pace, her voice entering gently, almost cautiously, as if testing the room. It’s a song about isolation, but not despair. There’s comfort in the pause, a sense that watching can be its own form of participation.
That perspective feels hard-earned. After a vocal injury sidelined her from singing for years, Margaret redirected her creative energy into instrumental work, releasing Mia Gargaret in 2020 and Romantic Piano in 2023. Those albums leaned into ambient traditions associated with artists like Ernest Hood and The Books, favoring texture, patience, and emotional implication over narrative clarity. The detour sharpened her instincts. When her voice finally returned, it came back to a composer who had learned how much could be said without words.
Singing brings those lessons forward. The songs are structured like pop, but they breathe like ambient pieces, unfolding intuitively rather than rushing toward hooks. Every sound feels placed with care, yet nothing feels rigid. On “Everyone Around Me Dancing,” that balance is especially clear, the arrangement drifts while feeling lands with precision.
Margaret’s music has always thrived in quiet moments, but this latest chapter feels less like retreat and more like resolve. By embracing observation as its own kind of connection, she’s found a way to sing that feels both grounded and newly open.
Connect with Gia Margaret: Instagram | Youtube