MARK LANEGAN BAND – Phantom Radio
With his much-anticipated new album Phantom Radio just under a month away on 20th October, MARK LANEGAN BAND have today announced news of an extensive European tour running from January through to March 2015. The tour will touch down in the UK for the following shows, including a performance at The Ritz in Manchester:
20 – GLASGOW – ABC
21 – NEWCASTLE – Riverside
22 – LEEDS – Met University
23 – MANCHESTER – Ritz
26 – BIRMINGHAM – The Library
27 – BRISTOL – O2 Academy
28 – LONDON – Shepherd’s Bush Empire
29 – PORTSMOUTH – Pyramids
Lanegan’s chief compositional tool on Phantom Radio was his phone – specifically an app called Funk Box. “I didn’t bother to hook up my 909 and 808 this time,” he says, “because the app had ’em. I’d write drum parts with it then add music with the synthesizer or the guitar.” The album grew organically from these synthetic roots, taking in Mark’s ongoing love of Krautrock and also an ’80s new wave show on Sirius satellite radio, his favoured aural companion as he drives around Los Angeles. “They have a few good shows but the ‘80s one in particular I like,” he says. “That’s the music that was happening when I started making music. And although the Trees drew on Nuggets psychedelia, 13th Floor Elevators and Love, we were actually listening to Echo And The Bunnymen, Rain Parade, the Gun Club. A lot of British post-punk. We loved that stuff. I just waited until I was in my late forties before I started ripping it off.”
Lanegan’s generous collaborative spirit sees him deliver an excellent co-write with British guitarist Duke Garwood, with whom he made last year’s dustbowl-desolate Black Pudding, and who now offers the music for I Am The Wolf, a Lanegan signature tune. Mark’s favourite song on the album, meanwhile, is Torn Red Heart, an intensely tender meditation for a broken heart that’s like The Velvet Underground’s Pale Blue Eyes orchestrated by Angelo Badalamenti. He also has a special mention for Floor Of The Ocean, which balances sheer catchiness with a deceptively bleak lyrical reflection on a life lived on the hard shoulder: “Clear eyes, can’t avoid the searchlight/Hope that they don’t find me/Find me where I’m lying.”
Phantom Radio will be released 20th October on Flooded Soil / Heavenly Recordings.
Tracklisting: Harvest Home / Judgement Time / Floor Of The Ocean / The Killing Season / Seventh Day / I Am The Wolf / Torn Red Heart / Waltzing In Blue / The Wild People / Death Trip To Tulsa
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