Giolì & Assia’s ‘Playing Chess’ is third single from coming album

Giolì & Assia have spent this year alternating between festival stages and single releases, appearing at Electric Forest and Day Trip Festival ahead of a run of headline dates this September that includes their largest shows to date, at LA’s The Novo and Brooklyn Steel. ‘Playing Chess’, released 10 August on Ultra Records, arrives as the third single from that campaign, following ‘Fire, Hell and Holy Water’ and ‘I’ll Be Fine’ earlier this year.

The single extends a run on Ultra Records that began in 2020, and it arrives ahead of the duo’s forthcoming third studio album, ‘Fire Hell and Holy Water’ — a title the campaign’s opening single already carried.

The album housing it runs to sixteen tracks, and ‘Playing Chess’ occupies track ten, its midpoint. Directly ahead of it in the sequence sits ‘Playing Chess (Prelude)’, a piece running just 1:16 before giving way to the full 3:51 version now released as the single.

Giolì carries the track’s uptempo percussion and piano chords, and Assia supplies the vocals and guitar over them.