When Ghosting Gets Loud: Fiona Amaka’s Releases "Cowards and Shadows"
In London's frenzied hum of sound, Fiona Amaka re-emerges with "Cowards and Shadows", her second release of 2025—a tune that is both timely and timeless. Produced with partner in crime and guitarist Andy Zanini, the track is evocative of the smoky intensity of an art-house indie-rock song, tempered with the scuffed quality of experience and the sheen of emotional truth. Its birth was inspired by a perpetual conversation—the ghosting silent epidemic. Once the cold-heartedness of vanishing from one's life in love or friendship, it has invaded office life, job hunting, and daily interactions and deposited a trace of invisible endings. Fiona borrowed the modern plague and, rather than condemning it, turned it into song.
The song began humbly, not in some grand studio, but with the bareboned intimacy of acoustic open mics. With only fragments of the track, Fiona sang to strangers. To her surprise, the listeners did not just hear them—they leaned toward her, aware before the final chord had faded. There was a mutual understanding in the room, as if each person carried in their pocket his or her own ghost tale. That silent connection whispered to her that the song was about to come out of the darkness and exist in the world, cut with the same raw honesty that gave birth to it.
And now, with summer finally underway, Fiona and her band will bring "Cowards and Shadows" to the Camden Weekender Festival stage on August 30. It'll be just one of many songs in a setlist honed from months of gigging around London—a six months as exhausting as they've been energizing. Fiona Amaka Band enjoyed the grind, becoming a part of the life of the music clubs of the city, from dark alleys to screaming stages, with each performance strengthening the relationship with the fans.
Online fans have already embraced the song, calling it cinematic and Bowie-like in its glamour. It's pretty retro-tastic, but it's so much more than that—it's a mirror held up against modern connection, or lack thereof. "Cowards and Shadows" doesn't moralize; it clings. It asks us to stay in the unease of vanishing acts and unreturned messages, and to recognize the bravery it takes to look each other straight in the face. In the hands of Fiona, the silence of ghosting is made audible, and it sings.
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