Willie J Healey Weaves Home Recordings and New York Sessions on New EP ‘143’

Willie J Healey will release the EP ‘143’ on September 4th, a loose, self-curated collection drawn from sessions in New York with producer Loren Humphrey and solo four-track recordings made at home. The project comes in the wake of his 2023 album ‘Bunny’ and ahead of a run of UK headlining dates and summer festival appearances.

Healey frames the EP as a kind of mixtape, sifting favourite pieces from different moments without over-polishing. “The songs and recordings really don’t have many bells and whistles, they’re all pretty straight up – we wanted to get the message across as directly as possible,” he wrote in a note to fans. The title nods to pager-era shorthand: “143” meaning “I love you,” a friend’s message that took him a while to decode. “I thought hey that’s a nice way of not being too soppy.”

Lead single ‘Ditch’ slows into a hazy, English-tinged indie pop groove, its warped effects bleeding into something close to a sitar line. Healey describes it as a song that arrived fully formed: “I just sat there with my arms open and it fell down to me. A gift from the tape lords, Loren Humphrey at the wheel me in the passenger seat with the windows all the way down.” Lyrically, he points to “old fashioned brains, Romeo and Juliet type situations, being young and scared.” The track reflects an ease that Healey says makes this his “most Neil yet” – a reference to Neil Young’s unvarnished ethos – and a step closer to his own style.