Dublin-based singer-songwriter KK Lewis returns with 'Absence', the first single from her forthcoming EP and a bold statement of artistic arrival.
She arrives at this moment with real momentum behind her. Breakout single Pigeon Man generated over 3 million views across TikTok and Instagram with 26k+ user-generated videos, earning praise from Hot Press, District Magazine, Earmilk, Nialler9 and Notion.
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This year alone she has sold out two headline Dublin shows and performed at Electric Picnic, All Together Now and Beyond The Pale, with major dates still to come, including the New Year's Eve Countdown Show at Dublin Castle on December 31st. Absence is a song about grieving someone who is still alive. Inspired by a night in a Dublin pub, it captures the specific ache of losing someone who once knew everything about you. Friendships, family ties, romantic relationships, any of them can end in ways that leave you mourning someone who is still alive.
‘Absence’ is a song about exactly that. "This song was born from one of the most specific feelings I've ever tried to put into words," KK explains. "It's about someone who was such a big part of my life, someone who knew what I was thinking before I said it, who could read the room the second I walked in. And then they were just gone. But not gone gone. They were still there, still alive, still existing in the world. And somehow that's the hardest kind of loss. Your absence has arms, hair and legs, I wrote that line and I knew it was the song. Their ghost was so vivid that it had a somewhat physical presence. I was mourning someone who was still sitting beside me in the pub."
Musically, Absence is cinematic and dramatic by design, with lush orchestral strings, jazz-inflected production with a sultry, late-night warmth. Drawing comparisons to Laufey, Olivia Dean, Norah Jones and Raye, it sits firmly in the neo soul and pop space. A collaboration born across continents, recorded between KK's bedroom in Dublin, a small studio in Dublin City Centre, and Joseph Rodgers' studio in Tooting, London.
The track features an extraordinary cast of musicians, Irish artists Alex O'Keeffe and Norah Stevens alongside London players Jay Verma, Matt Ingram and Marcus Hamblett - produced by Joseph Rodgers (beabadoobee, Rina Sawayama) and mastered by JHJ (Olivia Dean, Adele, London Grammar). With ‘Absence’, KK Lewis announces herself as one of Ireland's most compelling emerging voices, an artist with the rare ability to take the deeply personal and make it feel universal.
‘Absence’ is released October 29th 2026.
