Iona Zajac (The Pogues) Shares 'Murder Mystery' Video

10-21-2025

(PPR) Iona Zajac shares her new single "Murder Mystery" from her upcoming 21st November debut album Bang. Despite Bang being her debut, Iona, as a musician, has achieved more than many musicians could dream of.

Cutting her teeth initially as half of folk duo Avocet, her work that followed as a solo artist has pushed her to new heights, performing alongside legends Alison Moyet, Lankum, and Lisa O'Neill, among others. Beginning at the end of last year, Iona has started performing alongside The Pogues, a role that has seen her grace the Barrowland Ballroom, Brixton Academy, and, recently, return from a tour of the American East Coast with the legendary band.

With Bang, Iona delivers far more than a simply an early collection of songs. The record is an unflinching exploration of survival and reclamation, drawing on her own experiences while giving voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Through raw honesty and striking lyricism, she transforms pain into power, and vulnerability into defiance.

With "Murder Mystery", Iona Zajac invites listeners into a surreal world where the familiar turns unsettling - and the unsettling, empowering. "Murder Mystery is a surreal exploration of discomfort," Iona explains. "A fearless dive into the scary everyday fears women live with. It's a song that plays with questions about a woman's place in the world and the space we occupy - of femininity, of reputation, of fear and defiance. Where Scandi Noire meets police corruption in a Milk Murder."

The accompanying music video, directed by Zillah Rauter, brings this tension vividly to life through a character that embodies Iona's imagined alter ego - a woman both grotesque and glorious in her self-possession. "For the video we created my alter ego - a woman who lives in her fearless own world. It's both perfect and revolting, and it's absolutely hers," Iona says. "She sleeps standing up, she keeps her iron in the fridge, she wears fake talons on her feet... She does exactly what she likes."

Rauter expands on this vision: "Iona's lyrics in Murder Mystery made me reflect on our urge to run from parts of ourselves. The song inspired in me the value of not only sitting with discomfort, but embracing it; finding the harmony between the Divine and the Gruesome."

That harmony is made tangible through striking imagery - the slicing of a lamb's heart, the filling of a cereal bowl with nails, the dismembering of dolls - a macabre dance between beauty and brutality. Shot through both a voyeuristic 4K lens and the perspective of her bunny companion on DV tape, the video builds toward its haunting conclusion: the orchestration of her own fatal ending.

Murder Mystery sets the tone for Bang - a debut album that looks darkness in the eye and transforms it into something human and unflinching. By confronting the uncomfortable, Iona Zajac turns fear into defiance, vulnerability into power, and in doing so, opens a space for others to see themselves reflected.