Mali Returns With “Saviour Complex” Ahead of New Album

Mali has released “Saviour Complex,” a new offering and video that draws on her experience of feeling expected to be someone else’s hero. Built around pop melodies, bright layered ad-libs and a grooving bass synth line, the song pairs her assured vocals with a playful video that captures its youthful energy.

The release offers a glimpse of Where Was I?, an album Mali wrote after moving back to Mumbai in early 2022. She had expected to pick up where she left off, but returning home felt unfamiliar. “It felt more like arriving halfway through a conversation everyone else had been having without me,” she says.

That disorientation became a starting point for songs about identity, change and belonging. “Where Was I? is an album about the years that don’t announce themselves as important until they’re over,” Mali explains. She worked on the record with Keshav Dhar, who joined the project after hearing her demos.

An MTV Europe award-winning songwriter featured in the BBC’s Rhythms of India, Mali has performed at SXSW, Wembley Arena and Lollapalooza India, among other venues and festivals. She has also opened for Ed Sheeran and the Foo Fighters, calling the latter opportunity in India “surreal.”