Fifteen years after their debut shook the indie-pop scene, The Ting Tings return with HOME, their most intimate and accomplished album to date.

Written, recorded and self-produced from their finca in <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/categories/ibiza">Ibiza</a>, HOME reflects a creative journey grounded in stillness and <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/categories/soul-spirituality">soul</a>. In this rare first-person reflection, Katie White and Jules De Martino share how the island shaped their <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/music/rock-n-roll-music-history-70-years">sound</a>, why they stepped out of the industry's fast lane, and what it really means to arrive somewhere, not just physically but artistically, emotionally and as a family.
&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t planned, exactly. More of a magnetic pull, the kind that only reveals its meaning in hindsight. Years ago, we came to Ibiza to work on our second album. The island offered a <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/kim-booth-sound-healer-yoga-teacher-cosmic-space-holder">space</a> to rehearse, to disconnect, to breathe between beats. Something about that period stayed with us, not just the sunshine or the sea, but the feeling that creation here flowed differently.
Later, when we began recording Super Critical, we came back. Not for the beaches or the parties, but for the stillness in between. We found an old <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/documenting-the-past-the-ibiza-finca-portfolio-of-sayana-cairo">finca</a> in the centre of the island, worn and full of character, and fell for it instantly. Over time, Ibiza became more than a place to pass through. It became a backdrop to our chaos and a container for our calm.
After a few years living between Los Angeles and London, we returned again, this time with Meadow, our daughter, still tiny in our arms. We didn&rsquo;t announce it or plan it too tightly. We just stayed. And slowly, life began to root itself here.

Building our own <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/ceramic-artists-ibiza-ambar-parker-and-gonzalo-my-island">studio</a> and choosing to write, produce and release this new album independently wasn&rsquo;t so much a statement as it was a necessity. After releasing two albums under a major label, we had seen both sides of the coin. There were, of course, incredible moments with resources, reach and scale, but also pressures that slowly began to chip away at what made us want to make <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/categories/music">music</a> in the first place.
The more involved we became in that machine, the more disconnected we felt from our own rhythm. There were expectations around sound, timing, productivity and even identity.&nbsp;

"Creativity doesn&rsquo;t thrive on deadlines or demographic targeting. It needs space, stillness and trust."

By the time we reached our third album, independence became our way of protecting that space and reclaiming the freedom to write when it feels right. Exploring without asking for permission. Being in our own bubble, especially here, surrounded by nature and far from the noise, gave us back a kind of creative clarity we hadn&rsquo;t felt in years.
There&rsquo;s a quiet certainty that comes with knowing you&rsquo;ve arrived somewhere. Not geographically, but artistically. This album feels like that. Like coming home.

Over the course of four records, we&rsquo;ve wandered through genres, countries, and different ways of writing and living. Each chapter brought its own lessons, its own <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/music/miley-cyrus-returns-with-a-visual-album-something-beautiful">sound</a>. But with this one, something just clicked. The way we&rsquo;re writing now, the instruments we gravitate toward, even the pace of recording. It all feels deeply aligned with who we are and how we live here.

There&rsquo;s a kind of slowness and honesty in this process that suits us. It&rsquo;s not about chasing trends or reinventing ourselves. It&rsquo;s about settling into something that feels natural, generous and unforced. That&rsquo;s why the album is called HOME. Not because we&rsquo;ve stopped moving, but because we&rsquo;ve stopped searching.

"If we&rsquo;re lucky, we&rsquo;ll grow old here. Still writing. Still chasing melodies through the olive trees. Still finding joy in the simplest of sounds."

That first album, We Started Nothing, was electric. Raw, impulsive, gloriously unfiltered. We were living in an artist community in Salford, Manchester, surrounded by painters, <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/culture/the-many-lives-of-carla-bruni-model-musician-and-first-lady">musicians</a> and misfits. All of us creating from this shared hunger. Our sound back then was a collision of everything we loved: punk, indie, pop and rebellion. It wasn&rsquo;t polished, but it was real. And we&rsquo;re still proud of what it stood for.

Seventeen years on, things feel different. Not dulled, just deeper. We&rsquo;re not those twenty-somethings anymore. Life has happened. <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/culture/austria-s-jj-wins-eurovision-2025-with-the-anthemic-wasted-love">Love</a>, loss and change. With it, a different kind of clarity has emerged. The songs on this album carry all of that. They&rsquo;re reflective without being heavy, intimate without losing their edge. There&rsquo;s a warmth and a wisdom in them that only time can bring.

Living here in <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/categories/ibiza">Ibiza</a> has undoubtedly shaped that evolution. We&rsquo;ve worked hard to protect a slower rhythm that gives us space to really live between the notes. There&rsquo;s beauty in the simplicity: walks with our daughter, time in the studio with no pressure, mornings that unfold without urgency. It doesn&rsquo;t mean we&rsquo;ve lost the desire to explore. Cities still excite us. The world still calls. But here, we create from stillness, from breath, from being.

It&rsquo;s a surreal kind of joy watching That&rsquo;s Not My Name take on a second life. Popping up in a Netflix chart-topper one day, a Starbucks campaign the next, or being remixed into a TikTok moment by a generation that was barely walking when we first released it.

Those early songs, not just That&rsquo;s Not My Name, but much of our first album, have become their own kind of passport. They travel further than we ever imagined, reaching places and people we&rsquo;ll likely never meet. And while there&rsquo;s a certain weight to that legacy, a sense that it sometimes shapes people&rsquo;s expectations of what we &ldquo;should&rdquo; sound like, we&rsquo;re ultimately grateful. Those tracks still carry fire. They were bold, unapologetic and full of attitude.

Thanks to them, we&rsquo;ve been able to carve out the freedom to evolve. To make new music on our own terms. Their longevity has given us a kind of creative stability. The room to take risks, to slow down, to make work that feels true to where we are now. That&rsquo;s a gift we don&rsquo;t take lightly.

From the very first time we set foot on the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/my-island-cumhur-jay-turkish-ibiza-based-dj">island</a>, it felt inevitable. Like we were meant to end up here. There was something in the air and in the light. We came out of season, when everything slows and the island reveals its softer colours. Driving through the countryside, wildflowers blooming, the scent of smoke in the air, the red earth warm beneath pine trees. It felt like a dream we didn&rsquo;t want to wake from.

Ibiza holds multitudes. It&rsquo;s not just the clubs and the beaches. It&rsquo;s the mix of people, the strange beauty of opposites coexisting. There&rsquo;s space here for the grounded and the otherworldly, for barefoot rituals and late-night hedonism. That energy quietly seeps into everything.

This album carries that influence in a way that feels both subtle and unmistakable. Sonically, it&rsquo;s rooted in late '70s soft rock. That easy, cinematic feeling of driving with the windows down as the sun begins to drop. There&rsquo;s something Californian about it, in mood if not in geography. But the songs were written here, shaped by this landscape, this rhythm, this palette of sensations.
In many ways, we believe it&rsquo;s our most complete work to date. Not just because of the sound, but because of the place that made it possible.

&nbsp;HOME took four years to make. Ten songs, slowly distilled, written with care and without noise. During lockdown, we found ourselves here on the island, surrounded by silence and stacks of vinyl. We&rsquo;d spend long days listening to records that had shaped us: Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Dire Straits, The Carpenters, Joni Mitchell, Donald Fagen. There&rsquo;s a kind of truth in those old records. In the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/artist-olga-de-amaral-textiles-as-storytelling">storytelling</a>, the warmth, the restraint. They don&rsquo;t try to impress. They simply exist with elegance and intention.
That became our benchmark. We wanted each song to feel lived-in and to serve the story, not overwhelm it. We stripped everything back. No more, no less than what the song needed. In many ways, it&rsquo;s the most personal music we&rsquo;ve made. Much of it is inspired by our daughter, even if not always directly. There&rsquo;s a softness to it, a clarity. And that surprised us. Not just the sound, but how natural it felt to arrive there.
Living in <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/ibiza-dreamers-eric-aleix-sanllehy">Ibiza</a> has definitely shaped that approach. There&rsquo;s a different pace here, a different way of measuring time. We know many artists who feel under pressure to constantly produce, to stay visible, to be loud, to keep up. But we stepped out of that cycle years ago. We&rsquo;re no longer in the fast lane of the industry. We&rsquo;ve chosen something quieter and more deliberate.

We&rsquo;re not trying to break through algorithms or chase chart placements. We&rsquo;re simply putting this record out into the world, hoping someone takes a moment to stop, listen and feel what we&rsquo;ve tried to craft with care and grace.
And if they do, that&rsquo;s enough.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not trying to break through algorithms or chase chart placements. We&rsquo;re simply putting this record out into the world&hellip;&rdquo;

A perfect creative day? It never really goes perfectly. Not with a full-of-life five-year-old in the mix. But that&rsquo;s part of the beauty too. There&rsquo;s something grounding about being pulled out of your own head when you&rsquo;re spiralling through melodies or lyrics, and suddenly you&rsquo;re needed in the room, fully present. Meadow keeps us honest like that. We try to keep those worlds &mdash; the creative and the domestic &mdash; in balance. Most days, it&rsquo;s a bit of a dance.

When she&rsquo;s at school, that&rsquo;s when we dive in. The studio becomes our sanctuary. The place we return to again and again. It&rsquo;s where we&rsquo;re most ourselves.

And then, the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/the-oracle-of-talamanca-karimah-hassan-s-colour-drenched-dreamstate">dream</a> version of a day. Picking her up in the afternoon, heading straight to the beach. Watching her run barefoot in the sand while the sun sinks into the sea. Maybe a pizza. Friends dropping by. Easy, breezy music humming in the background. Nothing too curated. Just the right song finding its way in.
That rhythm &mdash; creative, then real life, then something in between &mdash; is what holds it all together.
If HOME leaves people with anything, I hope it&rsquo;s warmth. That&rsquo;s what listeners keep telling us. That it feels nostalgic, familiar, like an old friend you didn&rsquo;t realise you&rsquo;d missed.

We didn&rsquo;t set out to chase a feeling, but somehow it found us. In the chords, in the words, in the quiet between takes. There&rsquo;s comfort in this record. A gentleness. And if it can carry that into someone else&rsquo;s day, even for a moment, then it&rsquo;s already done more than we could ask.&rdquo;

The Ting Tings: Writing HOME in Ibiza

Tags

Related Articles

Portraits

A Conversation With: Superstar Jay Chou

Music

Medicine music - the hypnotic sound of the summer

Portraits

20 questions with an Ibiza insider: Dawn Hindle

Recommended posts for you

Ibiza