Carré Callaway—the brains and heart behind Queen Kwong—has never done things the easy way. You can hear that in the music she makes, and the way her songs defy categorization and genre. So it’s perhaps no surprise that in 2026, she’s doing one of the most difficult things imaginable: launching a record label. Sick isn’t just any record label, though. It’s one very much in keeping with her iconoclastic and idiosyncratic nature—a collaborative singles label that pits unlikely artists together in order to write a song, collaboratively, that deviates from the kind of music they’d normally make.
The first single on the London-based label, which Callaway co-founded with Darian Zahedi and Nick Hinman, was released at the end of September. A collaboration between Lee Kiernan from IDLES and RIS 707, “PULS.zip” was a wildly inventive and uncompromising track that set the tone for Sick from the very first beat. Now, the newly released follow-up “Scream Your Name” is a collaboration between London-based artist Aziya, English songwriter and producer Mr Hudson, and The Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi. It’s wildly different from the previous single, though it’s just as unpredictable as you’d expect from something made by that motley crew.
The song itself taps into the vulnerability of a faltering relationship, something conveyed perfectly by the way Aziya’s vocals float sadly above the upbeat, insistent melody, transforming the pain and desperation of her continual pleas into something hopeful and, as the song comes to an end, almost euphoric. Bold and brave, it expertly demonstrates the power of creative collaboration and an artist-led ideology, and, as such, sums up exactly what Sick is all about. “I want Sick to foster a community and a scene,” says Callaway. “I want it to help get us back to grass roots, to find agency and support from fellow artists, and realize complaining isn’t helping. As artists, we’ve got to save ourselves and each other.”
“People keep asking me how I know Sick is going to work,” she continues, “and I keep saying, ‘I don’t know. It’s the music industry. Nobody can know anything these days.’ But we’re artists and every good artist has to take risks. We’re shooting our best shot with Sick.”
Listen to “Scream Your Name” below (or stream it here), and keep an eye out for the third single from Sick, featuring Bauhaus/Love and Rocket’s David J, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, and Black Lips’ Zumi Rosow.
