Scottish folk pioneers Lau have announced the release of their new album Midnight and Closedown (February 8th, 2019). This will be their first new music since 2015’s ‘The Bell That Never Rang’ (Album of The Year – The Herald, ***** The Guardian).
The new music was written in Shetland and continues Lau’s experimental approach to folk music. With increasingly stripped-back instrumental arrangements and exploratory song forms, the album deals with timely themes of isolation, togetherness and forgiveness.
Lau are recording with John Parish – famous for his production and collaborations with P.J Harvey, Eels, Sparklehorse, This Is The Kit, Aldous Harding, Rokia Traore, M. Ward, Giant Sand and many more.
Since their last album, all three members of Lau have been expanding their compositional horizons. They’ve been individually working with orchestras, choirs, authors, songwriters, indie bands, jazz musicians, animators and many more collaborators. All three bring that experience back to Lau and to this new album, making for a musical language that builds on their traditional roots but is unlike anything they’ve done before.
Fiercely independent now for over a decade, Lau (Aidan O’Rourke, Kris Drever and Martin Green) are self- financing their new album and have invited fans to be a part of the new album by pre-ordering special editions via their website – including a rare chance to be named in the album artwork credits for Vinyl and CD versions.
Pre-orders are available until October 1st 2018 here https://laumusic.bigcartel.com.
Lau will premiere new music at their Lau-Land Edinburgh International Festival curation, Saturday, August 18, 2018, part of the Light On The Shore with Edinburgh Gin Seaside at Leith Theatre series. Lau-Land 2018 features concerts from Lau, Joan As Police Woman, James Holden & The Animal Spirits, Nadah El Shazly, Alasdair Roberts and Whitburn Brass. There will also be an afternoon event celebrating community folk music called “Lau-Land Big Tune Machine”.
Full details can be found here https://www.eif.co.uk/whats-on/2018/lau-land and https://www.eif.co.uk/whats-on/2018/big-tune-machine
The band will then embark on a concert tour in support of the new album through November 2018 with extra shows expected to be announced soon for 2019 (when the album is officially released worldwide on Friday 8th February 2019 by Reveal Records).
Lau Midnight and Closedown concert tour Tickets http://www.lau-music.co.uk/gigs/
The album features artwork by Derbyshire artist Martin Hyde (see below) who painted the cover for their Decade compilation.
