Declan McKenna dropped into the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge yesterday to perform a delicate rendition of Dua Lipa’s ‘Hallucinate’. Playing an acoustic guitar and accompanied by tender piano and swelling, shimmering guitar lines, McKenna transformed Lipa’s megapop stomper into a tender, minimalist introspection.

Check it out the performance below:

McKenna released his sophomore album ‘Zeros’ last Friday to rave reviews and is likely to take the number one spot in the album charts this week. But he’s be competing head-to-head with the Rolling Stones’ reissue of their 1973’s ‘Goats Head Soup’, with Billy Ocean and Paloma Faith not far behind. If he clinches the top spot by this Friday, ‘Zeros’ will be the indie superstar’s first chart topper and first top 10 album.

Speaking to Dork last month about the album, McKenna said the pop heart of the album is informed by his inclinations for experimentation: “The songs that come to me naturally are just pop songs. I’m not trying to be a crazy math-rock artist or anything like that, but I like experimentation to be at the base of my work. I always end up writing pop songs, but there has to be something new about it for me. It has to feel fresh and give me that burst of energy you get when you hear a song you really like. I have to experience that with a song I’m writing, or I just give up straight away.”

And Mckenna has also been open about the struggles of recording an album and emerging as one of the biggest new artists of recent years, telling NME: “The most imposter syndrome I’ve ever felt is now,” he says. “I’ve just been sitting on an album for a year, and I have had too much time to ask myself questions about the musical direction I have gone in. When you get to that point, you begin to wonder if you are an absolute fraud.”

The artist performed a small, socially-distanced gig on September 4th in London to celebrate the release of ‘Zeros’.