Isabelle Mettle Produces Her Own Sound on ‘CMD’

The sharpest statements often arrive without fanfare. North London’s Isabelle Mettle has kept hers direct: a new EP, CMD, out in September, written, performed, and produced entirely alone. In an industry conversation still shaped by who gets credited in the studio, that production credit isn’t a footnote. It’s the point.

The sound pulls from a specific pocket of early-2000s R&B — the warm, unhurried space occupied by Jill Scott and the Soulquarians — but filtered through a London lens that adds grit without losing the melodic centre. New single “Good In Me” carries a Philly-style glow, its softness built around a core that refuses to blur. There’s no performance here, just presence. “I wanted to create a track that feels like coming home to yourself through your relationships,” Mettle explains. “Where you feel like you’re not performing, you are just undeniably yourself.”

The line works as a thesis for the whole project. By handling every layer of the recording, Mettle avoids the translation gap that can thin out a song’s intent. On CMD, authorship isn’t a side note to the music — it’s the reason the songs hold.