Ali Angel & Rae Isla
Ali & Rae. Two words. So much to say. We had our first Zoom chat a few weeks ago and I certainly felt like it was a moment.
Ali & Rae. Two words. So much to say. Ali & Rae. We had our first Zoom chat a few weeks ago and I certainly felt like it was a moment. Ali Angel, the perfect name to sing the perfect song. I found Stone Cold a little over a year ago. It meant something very different to me than it did to her.
For Ali, Stone Cold was a song about queer identity and self-discovery through that lens. For me, two decades older and lying sleepless in the frost of an English winter, it was about hiding a different secret. It was 17 March 2025 when I shared one of her posts. She replied straight awawy: Thanku!! I decided to overlook the US grammar and say how much Stone Cold meant to me: ahh thank you so much! Really appreciate it.
A month later, I finally released a feature article on women in Americana. Girls, Guitars, Guns, Gasoline and God was my realisation that all the tropes of Americana seemed to begin with G.
PAUL DETTMANN
Then, on 19 April 2025, Ali posted a story about a Rae Isla release. Did they know each other? Were they just helping to share each other's music? Yes, they did know each other and had been friends for around a year at that point. The DMs carried on for a couple of months, mainly me tagging Ali in whatever playlist or article I had made with one of her songs on.
11 June 2025. A change. A secret Google Drive link. Would I write about Ali's single due on 11 July? The funny thing is that 11 June is the anniversary of my Vegas wedding and 11 July is my wife's birthday.
PAUL DETTMANN
The song was She Says It's Alright. It remains my second favourite song after Stone Cold. I can't believe it is a year since I heard it, since I first wrote about it. But the thing is, the thing was, my music writing was still going out right here on my own blog. No Substack, no Tennessee Vibes, no Americana Vibes, just DETTMANN. The traffic on this site way exceeds anything else I have ever done online.
I am supposed to be writing about the new collaboration single between Ali and Rae and I now realise I have a lot of baggage to shift before I start to do that. I promise I will do a review and that it will be ready on the day of release, May 29.
But first you had to realise how important Ali Angel is to this whole project. Ok. Let's talk about Rae Isla. My favourite Rae Isla song is and will always be Years Beers Her Tears and you can read more about it below.
PAUL DETTMANN
One thing about Rae is that she is totally immersed in the business side of music, as well as being a pro musician. She uses every tool, will try every angle. She writes postcards and letters and collects rocks. She is in every sense a fully professional and indie artist. For her, travelling is not a burden but part of the life, even if she only uses one 'l'. Rae is gradually building deeper connections to the UK.
What I could not have known on 20 June 2025 when I wrote that piece was that Rae was coming over. Not only that, but she had picked a venue fifteen minutes from my house in Chesham, England. This was a venue even I did not know about. I booked. The first time I saw Rae Isla, she was coming down the stairs in this guy's house. I was sat with two geezers I did not know, stroking their dog. I was drinking Guinness Zero. She came over and said hi and stroked the dog and went off. The venue was nuts: read more below.
Paul Dettmann
After the show, as Rae signed my record, she said two things. One. I'll be back. They all say this so I just smiled and nodded. And two. I am doing a single with Ali. Gulp. I later learned it was not really written then, it was more like an intention. And I just remembered something else. That day was Austen's birthday, Ali's other half, and Rae was gutted to be missing the party. Instead she was stuck with me in England.
8 May 2026. Ali sent the preview link to her new single, the Rae Isla duet. It's better than good. It's so them and so new and so different and so familiar. They insisted on a Zoom call. What can you do? Now, where was I? I need to review that song and write up the interview. Laterz, babe.
PAUL DETTMANN
