Hunter As a Horse—the project of South African musician and vocalist Mia van Wyk—returns with “Lighthouse,” a deeply personal new single out January 30, 2026 via Metropolis Records. The track marks van Wyk’s first release for the label, signaling a powerful new chapter in her steadily evolving artistic journey.
Based in South Africa’s Western Cape, van Wyk has spent recent years self-releasing a wide-ranging body of work that blends electronically driven songwriting with intense, melancholic lyricism and darkly cinematic production. Lighthouse distills those elements into one of her most emotionally resonant statements to date.
Drawing inspiration from mythology, psychology, and the writings of Carl Jung—particularly the concept of “shadow work”—Lighthouse explores the idea that only the broken can truly understand one another. Van Wyk frames the song as an act of defiance against the notion that some people cannot be saved. Instead, it becomes a fearless confrontation with inner demons, rooted in empathy, lived experience, and hard-won healing.
Musically, Hunter As a Horse continues to blur boundaries, gliding effortlessly between alternative, indie, electronic, and dream-pop, with subtle detours into alternative dance and nu-goth. The result is a haunting, immersive soundscape that feels both intimate and expansive. The project has previously been described as creating apocalyptic soundtracks for uncertain times, with The Guardian noting its “mesmerising atmospherics… dark and very lovely indeed.”
Van Wyk’s lyrics are shaped by a deeply personal and mystical worldview, informed by themes of death, addiction, astral visions, CPTSD, melancholia, nostalgia, and magical thinking. That authenticity has resonated far beyond the underground, with Hunter As a Horse songs appearing in major U.S. television series including American Horror Story, Riverdale, and Elite, as well as the film Wander Darkly and numerous international advertising campaigns.
With Lighthouse, Hunter As a Horse offers a guiding light through emotional darkness—one grounded not in perfection, but in survival, understanding, and shared scars.
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