Alex Amor has shared ‘Aquamarine’, a new single from her debut album Heavenly Bodies, out on 21st August 2026. Written after an oracle card reading in Los Angeles and finished with producer Matthew Neighbour, the song pulls two coastlines together at once, mixing LA chance with memories of childhood summers on the west coast of Scotland.
That leaves ‘Aquamarine’ looking in two directions at once. It works as a love song, but it is also reaching for something older and harder to pin down: salt air, freedom and the feeling of a place still holding part of you years later. The phrase ‘west coast air’ carries both meanings, one in California and one in Scotland, and that double pull keeps the single from becoming just another summer romance song.
A wistful single shaped by coastlines and chance
Musically, ‘Aquamarine’ gives that atmosphere room to move. Burnished guitars, featherlight percussion and an easygoing Americana pulse suggest something airy and sunlit, but there is enough ache in the setup to stop it drifting away. It sounds light without feeling weightless, which is exactly what a song like this needs.
The story behind it gives the track even more character. Alex Amor has said the first lyrics arrived after cycling to Manhattan Beach in LA, before Matthew Neighbour spotted she was in town and invited her into the studio. ‘Aquamarine’ has that followed-the-thread quality, as though nobody tried to tidy the first spark out of it.
It also opens a slightly different side of Heavenly Bodies. If ‘Icarus’ pushed the album’s larger symbolic scale into view, ‘Aquamarine’ brings things back to shore. Where the wider record leans into celestial imagery, liminal spaces and mysticism, this song turns towards beaches, weather, distance and the afterglow of somewhere that still feels like freedom. It also sits beautifully beside ‘Meet On The Moon’, another track that showed how comfortably Alex can hold atmosphere and feeling in the same frame.
The visual side appears to be chasing a similar kind of stillness. The video, directed by Henry Croston and shot at Beachy Head near Alex’s new home in Brighton, draws on white cliffs, negative space, spiral motifs and a clear Solange reference point. It also comes with the news of an intimate Rough Trade Denmark Street in-store on 26th August 2026, just after the album arrives.
Alex Amor is clearly building a world here, but ‘Aquamarine’ works because it keeps that world within touching distance. The detail does the work for it.
‘Aquamarine’ Review
I really like the sound of this one, partly because it does not try to make wistfulness bigger than it needs to be. ‘Aquamarine’ is gentle, but it is not vague. The guitars have a soft glow, the percussion keeps everything moving, and the whole song understands that memory often hits harder when nobody is pushing it towards a grand emotional payoff. The Scottish beach imagery is the part that stays with me most. It does not feel like scenery placed around the song to make it prettier. It feels like the point of the song.
It is probably not the most immediate doorway into Heavenly Bodies, and anyone waiting for a huge chorus may find it too soft-spoken. I think that softness works in its favour. Alex Amor lets the track breathe, lets the ache arrive slowly, and trusts the detail instead of forcing the drama. For me, that makes ‘Aquamarine’ less of a big album statement and more of a small, persuasive clue: Heavenly Bodies may have its eyes on the sky, but some of its strongest moments might come from much closer to the ground.
You can listen to ‘Aquamarine’ here and watch the video here.
