CHILD + the banned - 'Ice Cube Candy'
CHILD + THE BANNED
DROPS HYPNOTIC NEW SINGLE
“ICE CUBE CANDY”
Today - July 4, 2025, Copenhagen-born, London-based creative force CHILD + the banned returns with her brand new single Ice Cube Candy. This eccentric new release serves a sparkling summer anthem, topped with melting trip-hop grooves: An ode to the freaks on the dance floor; the sexy, the hallucinogenic, and the dramatic. Ice Cube Candy marks the 8th single from CHILD + the banned, and the first single of her debut EP, to be released this Fall in full.
Ice Cube Candy is available now on your streaming service of choice via APOLLO Distribution.
Listen to Ice Cube Candy below:
https://apollodistro.lnk.to/CTB-IceCubeCandy
Speaking on the writing process, CHILD shares; "I wrote 'Ice Cube Candy' together with Nathan (Ridley) in our very first session together, down at legendary Hermitage Works studios in North London", CHILD says. "It's that kind of studio, which hides behind a garage door. Once you enter the worn out wooden door, there's a secret paradise of analogue synths blinking and emitting beeping sounds, there are Japanese Manga dolls on the shelves, a thick layer of dust covers everything, and you just might find a few coloured pills lying in the corner. Nathan had just had his birthday and we somehow immediately bonded over London rave culture. It turned out that neither of us had ever been partying much as teenagers – because we'd both felt weird and out of place in the environments we'd grown up in – but in London, we'd both discovered the sense of liberation and self discovery embedded in raving and dancing."
She recalls, laughing: "We honestly had so much fun writing Ice Cube Candy! We'd literally be rolling down the studio sofa in laughter over how silly the lyrics were and the weirdness of some of the baby dragon sounds I was making on that record." She shrugs her shoulders, smiling: "We wrote it in a few hours."
One particular memory inspired the lyrics: "As we were writing, I started thinking back to when I was a teenager – I was an absolute geek! – and I never went to any parties," she says. "Partly because I felt so out of place in the rather conservative environment I grew up in. I didn't like the premise of young womanhood. It felt like there was an expectation for me to be an object of male desire – it laid in the cards, in the culture – but I did not want that in any way. I liked the tease, but I felt uncomfortable whenever guys would come near me. At the infamous end of year party before high school began, I remember painting my entire face and eyes with dark purple lipstick stars; I put on a weird outfit and went straight to the party with unforeseen confidence. Going to that final party, somehow revealing myself as an outsider to that conservative environment, felt like a turning point: My first step into reinventing womanhood and, really, discovering the realms of my own sexuality."
More on CHILD + the banned…
CHILD + THE BANNED creates little reveries unveiling her dramatic perception of a hazy world. Behind the moniker is singer, songwriter, producer and composer Josephine ‘CHILD’ Carl. Together with her band – who all met whilst studying music at the infamous art school of Goldsmiths, London – CHILD + THE BANNED performs with their cinematic setup around Europe. Previous venues include 180 Studios, The Albany Theatre, The Lower Third, The Lexington, O2 Islington, Chelsea College of Art, Grand Arthouse Cinema in Copenhagen, world renowned Museum Insel Hombroich in Cologne, and recently at Milan Fashion Week, performing with couturier Michaela Stark at Fondazione Sozzani, and a sold-out collaborative performance at Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio in London.
Calling herself a ‘CHILD’ isn’t coincidental. During her second year of music studies, a Phoniatrics specialist concluded that Josie’s voice had not dropped and matured like voices normally do for girls in their teenage years; in fact, her voice was stuck "in a state of puberty," hence the bright, high quality of her sound. CHILD + THE BANNED's next headline show (promoted by Parallel Lines) will be in London on 13th November 2025. The event is sold out.
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