Freya Ridings HMV Manchester 1st June 2026

Mother of Pearl Album Launch Show

Story by Ben Avery

02/06/2026

With the release of her new Album Freya Ridings is on a promotional tour doing intimate short shows in record stores. We managed to get in at the last minute to the one at HMV Manchester. A 5 o’clock show and album signing.

Freya performed alone, just her, a microphone, and her Nord Stage 3 electric piano. Her voice immediately filled the room. She was here for a short set to promote the album so it was no surprise that she launched straight into it. There were 4 songs from the new album and then a surprise performance of her breakthrough hit ‘Lost Without You’ to finish the set. Lost Without You and the early live album, ‘Live at Omeara’, a second massive single ‘Castles’ and her debut album proper ‘Freya Ridings’ were all part of the meteoric rise to fame, major national airplay, chat show TV appearances, selling out large venues throughout the UK and Europe and major festival performances. You’d say it was the perfect base to continue the success with a second album and bigger venue tours. However things rarely pan out the way you expect them and an imperfect storm of covid and being pushed into working with all the wrong people and then poor sales of the second album, subsequently led to being dropped by her label. She could have crumbled. Instead gathered her courage and headed away from all the noise and distractions at home for the sunshine and newness of LA. There she spent about a year writing and recording, and playing the new songs to small audiences. This time she surrounded herself with producers that she’d hand picked: Sam De Jong (Gracie Abrams), Fraser T Smith (Adele, Stormzy) and Toby Gad (Beyoncé). Describing the studio experience - "It was like being in the studio with friends". They were people who shared her belief in the new material. The result is a new body of work - the Album ‘ Mother Of Pearl’ and it was a pleasure to hear one of the first performances of some of it. The short record store tour continues at HMV Birmingham today, and Truck in Oxford and Resident in Brighton over the rest of this week.