Nick Valensi joins Aziya and Mr Hudson on Scream Your Name, a new single released by Sick, the independent label recently launched by Carr Callaway, Darian Zahedi, and Nick Hinman. For The Strokes guitarist, this is not a new release tied to the New York band's discography, but rather a collaboration built around an editorial project aimed at connecting musicians from different backgrounds, cities, and career stages.
At the center of the track is the voice of Aziya, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, while Mr Hudson steps in as producer alongside Valensi. The result is presented as a track driven by a pronounced rhythmic pace, cutting distorted guitars, and a sonic framework that maintains an uneasy tension. The most significant element, however, lies in the context of the track's release: Scream Your Name is Sick's second public chapter and helps define, through its releases, the perimeter of a label still in its early days.
A song born without a rigid record label mandate
Aziya explained that she entered the studio with Valensi and Mr Hudson intending to experiment, without starting from a predefined commercial objective. It is a detail consistent with Sick's stated philosophy: fostering sessions and singles born from encounters between artists, rather than building long-term contractual relationships around a single name from the outset.
On a narrative level, Scream Your Name describes the pull and strain of a relationship that would be sensible to walk away from, yet continues to draw in those living it. Aziya chose to address this dynamic with an intentionally lighter, almost ironic tone compared to the toxic nature of the relationship depicted. In her words, the song represents that deceptively calm phase preceding a fresh rise in tension: the moment when you can either break the cycle or fall back into it once more.
It is not an unusual theme in pop and rock songwriting, but how it is musically framed also matters here. Valensi brings to the project a guitar identity immediately recognizable to fans of The Strokes; Mr Hudson, a British producer and songwriter, adds another perspective to the track's construction; Aziya remains the interpretive and authorial core of the piece. There is no indication in the available information that the collaboration will lead to an album or a joint live project. For now, it is a standalone single, and this autonomy is part of its industry significance.
Sick attempts to turn collaboration into its catalog
The birth of Sick should be viewed in the context of an industry where many artists alternate between traditional contracts, independent releases, flexible distribution, and occasional collaborations. The label founded by Callaway—a musician who goes by the name Queen Kwong—together with Zahedi and Hinman, claims to welcome both independent artists and musicians already signed to other entities. The defining point is not only the freedom to participate, but the absence of binding multi-year deals for individual collaborations.
In practice, Sick aims to release tracks born from intersections between generations, genres, and local scenes. It is a model that shifts the focus from the traditional development of a stable roster to the ability to activate a network. For established artists, it can represent a lateral space to test out languages or unexpected studio partners; for emerging acts, the opportunity to share a release with names that already have an audience and professional connections. It remains to be seen how continuous and sustainable this approach can become, as the project is only on its second release.
Callaway described Sick as an attempt to rebuild a sense of community and grassroots initiative among musicians. Her stance does not hide the uncertainty: there is no guarantee of the label's commercial viability, especially in a market where the speed of releases and the crowded supply make it difficult to predict which projects will find an audience. But this very uncertainty is part of the gamble: instead of waiting for ideal conditions, the founders are using the release of singles as a testing ground.
From the first experiment to the second encounter
Sick's debut single, released in September, was PULS.zip, a collaboration between Lee Kiernan of IDLES and Tokyo artist RIS-707. The pairing already established a clear direction: bringing together a musician from an established rock band and a name rooted in a different geographical scene. Scream Your Name broadens that logic, replacing the intersection of British post-punk and a Japanese project with a triangulation among a member of the Strokes, a singer-songwriter, and a producer.
The two releases do not yet outline a singular sound for Sick. Rather, they suggest that the label does not aim to be defined by a genre, but by the format of the encounter. It is an important distinction: a catalog built on collaborations relies less on stylistic consistency and far more on the credibility of the connections it makes possible. If the mechanism is to work, every release will need its own artistic justification and must not appear as a mere patchwork of names.
For Valensi, appearing on Scream Your Name offers an outlet outside the collective trajectory of the Strokes, placing him in an ecosystem that seeks to highlight targeted contributions. For Aziya, who drives the track's emotional core, the single is an opportunity to bring her songwriting into a high-visibility collaboration without the project being tied to an album released by someone else. Mr Hudson completes the picture with a production role that connects the session to the culture of co-writing, which is increasingly central to contemporary releases.
The next step for Sick will be to prove that these first installments are not just isolated events. The announced model requires continuity, curation capable of holding together genuinely disparate artists, and clear rules for those arriving from different recording contracts. For now, Scream Your Name adds a second piece to the puzzle: not a theoretical manifesto, but a track that gives concrete shape to the idea of a label built to circulate collaborations outside the beaten path.
