MF Tomlinson releases new EP 'Heaven Is Other People'

MF Tomlinson today releases new EP Heaven Is Other People - led by loose-limbed new single 'Now, I Am Free'. MF Tomlinson will play Left Of The Dial Festival in Rotterdam in October.

Heaven Is Other People is Tomlinson's first body of work since completing a remarkable self-produced album trilogy with 2025’s Die To Wake Up From A Dream.

Awarded 9/10 by Uncut, included in Mojo's Best Albums Of 2025 and supported by Rolling Stone, The Needle Drop, The Line of Best Fit amongst others - the album marked a career high for the London-based Australian. Now a father, Tomlinson returns creatively transformed, working more instinctively and making some of the most open-hearted, immediate music of his career.

Written following the birth of his first child and recorded during impromptu sessions at his studio in Poplar, London, Tomlinson describes Heaven Is Other People as "a collection of lo-fi gestural pieces on human connection".

Speaking about the EP, Tomlinson shared:

"Sometimes the power of a song is to reach for meaning words cannot access. At other times it’s a gift that lets you name something profound - so simply - that it feels effortless. It’s too easy to forget in the cynicism of our day-to-day that it’s people who make our lives what they are, and people that we will see in our dreams."

Across its five tracks, Tomlinson embraces a looser approach, balancing patient, spacious songwriting with richly layered instrumentation - alongside his regular collaborators (the "MFs"): Ed Grimshaw (drums), Ben Manning (bass), Gail Tasker (flute) and Kayvon Nabijou (keys and saxophone).

The EP's title track and opener 'Heaven Is Other People' moves Tomlinson’s songwriting into unexpectedly joyful territory, growing from intimate reflection into an expansive hymn to human connection.

'Robin’s Synth Improvisation' takes its name from a performance by Tomlinson's son on a Korg Volca synthesiser. Beginning with a heartbeat, the sound collage blooms into a bright field of candid recordings of loved ones and tape-as-instrument contributions from Paul Cousins, before leading directly into 'Now, I Am Free'. "This jam leads to the next tune," Tomlinson explains. "It was the Rosetta Stone for unlocking what was really being expressed in this release."

Elsewhere, exuberant focus single 'Now, I Am Free' expands Tomlinson’s palette into loose-limbed, freewheeling indie-rock, reflecting on the newfound peace and sense of perspective that parenthood has brought him.

"My experience of becoming a parent has all been quite unexpected," says Tomlinson. "Having something so powerfully and wholly wonderful and good in my world that just blows all the fears that used to monopolise my time away. I’ve got something better to live for now – now, I am free."

Personal and familial histories recur throughout the EP. On 'Rolling On Home', Tomlinson tenderly adapts 'Michael – Minnesota Grandson', a poem by his grandfather David Rowbotham (recipient of the Order of Australia for services to literature and journalism) replacing the name "Michael" with "Robin" as he reads it to his own son.

Closing track 'Goodnight Noises Everywhere' transforms the "oceanic feeling" - the infant sense of boundlessness and oneness with the world - into an enveloping instrumental lullaby. Written for Tomlinson’s newborn son and those witnessing his earliest months, it finds possibility in what parent and child can learn from one another.

Taken as a whole, Heaven Is Other People finds transcendence in the ordinary, celebrating the people who shape our lives while revealing a newly focused yet more open musical language - alive to subtler shades of feeling and willing to let each song follow its own instincts.

Heaven Is Other People follows self-produced albums: Strange Time (2021), We Are Still Wild Horses (2023) and Die To Wake Up From A Dream (2025) - which have established him as one of the UK's most singular songwriters.

Blending folk, orchestral pop, experimental jazz, slowcore and ambient textures into richly immersive worlds, his work has earned widespread acclaim and support from Rolling Stone, The Times, Mojo, Uncut, The Wire, The Line of Best Fit, Record Collector, PROG, musicOMH, The Arts Desk and many more, while his live performances have taken him from festivals including End of the Road, Latitude and The Great Escape to UK and EU runs supporting Geese, Dry Cleaning, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, TORRES, Melin Melyn, James Yorkston, to name but a few.

MF Tomlinson's new EP Heaven Is Other People is out now. Tomlinson plays Left Of The Dial Festival in Rotterdam next month.

LIVE DATES

• 23 Oct - Left Of The Dial, Rotterdam
• 24 Oct - Left Of The Dial, Rotterdam
• 'Heaven Is Other People' EP - track list
• 1. Heaven Is Other People
• 2. Robin's Synth Improvisation
• 3. Now, I Am Free
• 4. Rolling On Home
• 5. Goodnight Noises Everywhere