British electronic musicians Imogen Heap and Jon Hopkins have been friends for more than 30 years, having met when Hopkins toured with Heap's first live band. But it wasn't until the two were interviewed by BBC 6Music last year that they realized that, despite crossing paths in their later work, they had never written a song together.

Returning to his studio later that same day, Hopkins revisited a track that he felt was lacking a spark despite working on it "for something like a year," and inspiration struck. He sent it to Heap, she loved it, and a new song "Reckoning" began to take shape.

Listen below:

"I'd been writing almost like a diary, but also writing words that sounded nice with each other, things with a nice stanza," says Heap in a press release, adding:

"Something pretty devastating had happened that day and I was upstairs, unable to go downstairs and I had it on my headphones. I immediately felt so positive and grateful that I had this outlet, and that these words were magically feeling really nice with what Jon had done.”

Hopkins adds of the recording:

"Neither of us arrived at the vocal session with a plan. I mean I never do. But we spent a couple of days following what seemed exciting, and somewhere in that process the song gradually revealed itself, through a mixture of improv and me editing bits together. It evolved super organically."

An almost finished version of the track was debuted earlier this year at London's The Roundhouse when Hopkins joined Heap on stage as a surprise guest. Some final touches to the song were added by London-based Australian producer HAAi, who has a new album, DIGITiSE, out in October.

"Reckoning" is Heap's third collaboration to be released in 2026, following "Have You Considered?" with drag queen and climate activist Pattie Gonia, and "London-Hackney" with Norwegian trumpeter and producer Nils Petter Molvær.

Listen to those two below: