Towa Bird has premiered her soul-baring new single “This Isn’t Me” via Interscope Records. Accompanied by a slice-of-life video partly shot by Towa herself, “This Isn’t Me” arrives as the Hong Kong-born artist gears up to join labelmate Alexander 23 as support for Reneé Rapp’s fall tour of North America.
A powerhouse musician known for her galvanizing guitar work, Towa brings both raw emotion and radiant imagination to “This Isn’t Me”—a bittersweet portrait of feeling painfully out of place in a strange and alienating social situation.
“I moved to the U.S. in October 2021 and by February I was flown out to Paris for fashion week,” explains Towa, who lives in Los Angeles. “Everyone there seemed to know each other, and I knew no one. Conversations didn’t feel authentic. Questions felt layered. ‘Who are you?’ felt like ‘Who can you be to me?’; ‘Where are you from?’ felt like ‘Why do you deserve to be here?’ (The answer: I didn’t feel like I deserved to be there.) There were celebrities, carpets, catwalks, and paparazzi. It was a paradox — the opportunity was so amazing and I’m so grateful, but I felt entirely alone.”
Written the day after Towa returned to L.A., “This Isn’t Me” fully captures the self-consciousness and longing she experienced during her time in Paris (“Sycophants and luxury/Everyone’s a somebody/And I wish you were with me/Pretending that we’re VIP”).
To create the song’s collage-like soundscape, Towa worked closely with producer Thomas Powers (co-founder of New Zealand indie-pop band The Naked and Famous), adorning her unfiltered expression with everything from spacey synth to furiously pounding drumbeats. As her guitar work journeys from gracefully understated to gloriously shredding, Towa imbues every moment of “This Isn’t Me” with her aching and intimate vocal delivery.
Directed by Towa and Luka McGhie, the montage-esque video for “This Isn’t Me” unfolds in a series of self-filmed scenes from Towa’s real life. The video also chronicles her time in the UK (where she partly grew up).
Buy or stream “This Isn’t Me.”
