IDLES announce new album ‘Ultra Mono’ and share first track ‘Grounds’

IDLES have announced their third album ‘Ultra Mono’ and shared its first single ‘Grounds’ – listen and find details of upcoming live-streamed shows below.

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Following on from 2018’s acclaimed ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’, the 12-track record will arrive on September 25 via Partisan.

Arriving today (June 16), lead track ‘Grounds’ was previewed during IDLES tour late last year. It has been described by frontman Joe Talbot as “a song that embodied self-belief, and gave us self-belief – a counter-punch to all the doubt we build up from all the noise we so easily let in”.

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“We wanted to make the sound of our own hearts’ marching band, armed with a jackhammer and a smile,” he explained. “We wanted to make the sound of our engine starting. So we did. Thank you.”

The song’s first verse begins with the lyrics: “You will not catch me staring at the sun/ Not sucking on a dum dum/ Not turning round to run/ No Hallelujahs and no kingdom comes/ So you will not catch me staring at the sun“.

‘Grounds’ arrives with an accompanying official video directed by Rob French.

Recorded in Paris, ‘Ultra Mono’ was produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire) and Adam ‘Atom’ Greenspan (Anna Calvi, Cut Copy). Additional programming was provided by Kenny Beats, with IDLES setting out to capture the feeling of a hip-hop record.

IDLES – ‘Ultra Mono’ artwork

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Savages‘ frontwoman Jehnny Beth will feature as a guest on the track ‘Ne Touche Pas Moi’, while Warren Ellis, David Yow and Jamie Cullum also contributed to the project.

The ‘Ultra Mono’ tracklist is as follows:

1. War
2. Grounds
3. Mr. Motivator
4. Anxiety
5. Kill Them With Kindness
6. Model Village
7. Ne Touche Pas Moi (feat. Jehnny Beth)
8. Carcinogenic
9. Reigns
10. The Lover
11. A Hymn
12. Danke

Ahead of their third album’s release, the band will be performing a trio of special live-streamed shows which will be professionally recorded at an unannounced iconic studio – you can find ticket details here.

Alongside today’s news, IDLES have unveiled the dates on which they will be releasing further ‘Ultra Mono’ cuts – see the schedule poster above.







This comes after IDLES signalled their anticipated upcoming album with a cryptic social media post yesterday (June 15).

 

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