MIDLAKE ANNOUNCE UK TOUR FOR FEBRUARY 2014 INCLUDING A PERFORMANCE AT O2 SHEPHERD'S BUSH EMPIRE

With their Islington Assembly Hall show in October selling out in less than 24 hours, MIDLAKE have today announced news of a UK tour in February 2014 to follow the release of their fourth album Antiphon in early November, finishing in London with a performance at Shepherd's Bush Empire. Upcoming UK/Irish dates below:

MIDLAKE LIVE:

Wednesday 23 October – LONDON – Islington Assembly Hall **(SOLD-OUT!)**

Thursday 20 February – MANCHESTER – The Ritz Tickets

Friday 21 February – WOLVERHAMPTON – Wulfrun Hall Tickets

Saturday 22 February – GLASGOW – O2 ABC Tickets

Sunday 23 February – DUBLIN – Vicar Street Tickets

Tuesday 25 February – BRISTOL – Anson Rooms Tickets

Wednesday 26 February – LONDON – O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire Tickets

An antiphon is a call-and-response style of singing, from Gregorian chants to sea shanties. In the case of Denton, Texas’ favourite sons Midlake, it’s the perfect title for a bold response to a new phase in the band’s illustrious career, with a re-jigged line-up and a newly honed sound as rich and symphonic as it is dynamic and kaleidoscopic.

Anyone who knows Midlake’s preceding albums will recognise some constituent parts of Antiphon: the quirky psychedelia of their 2004 debut, the ‘70s soft-rock strains of breakthrough album The Trials Of Van Occupanther and the Brit-folk infusion of 2010’s The Courage Of Others. But their fourth album is another fascinating departure, but also a logical progression. The sound is simultaneously familiar and changed. Click HERE to listen to the title track on soundcloud, or visit Midlake's website and sign up to the mailing list to download the track.

“It’s always through the scope of Midlake,” says vocalist / guitarist Eric Pulido, “but on Antiphon we wanted to embrace the psychedelia, style and nuance you might hear in bands from yesteryear while also being aware of music influences present now. The result was less folk and more rock. Less nostalgic and more progressive. Now the sky’s the limit.”

This growth is down to the ambition and ability of Pulido (vocals, guitars, keyboards) Paul Alexander (bass, keyboards, bassoon, guitars, backing vocals), McKenzie Smith (drums, percussion) and Eric Nichelson (guitars, autoharp), plus Jesse Chandler (keyboards, piano, flute, backing vocals) and Joey McClellan (guitars, backing vocals) from Midlake’s last live incarnation. But it’s also down to the absence of Midlake’s former singer Tim Smith, who left the band in November 2012.

In the fall-out over the spoils of what had already been recorded, the remaining members decided to start afresh, and wrote and recorded Antiphon in six harmonious months – bar ‘Vale’, which had been demoed without Smith during one of the sessions. With its ravishing, rippling textures symptomatic of Antiphon’s scale, ‘Vale’ showed how far they’d already come. The remaining nine tracks – the album is free-flowing in feel, concise in structure – confirm it’s very much Midlake, but uncannily rebooted, and relaxed.

The band had already validated their sublime instrumental mettle by backing John Grant on his award-winning 2010 solo debut Queen Of Denmark; now they had to step into new roles, collaborate on songwriting and have Pulido take over as frontman. He admits it wasn’t the easiest transition for any of the band but the experience was enormously freeing: “Antiphon is the most honest representation of the band as a whole, as opposed to one person’s vision that we were trying to facilitate.”

For example, ‘The Old And The Young’, a lighter, swinging version of the ‘new’ Midlake, has elements of “bouyancy” that Pulido says were long suppressed. “The chorus is catchy and has a lift, like we were releasing the dove! I love many genres of music - from Abba to Zappa, and I wanted to write in a way that wasn’t putting parameters around what it is we were creating. It was a more honest representation of who we really are.”

Antiphon will be released 4th November on Bella Union. New Midlake photo above.

For more information please contact Duncan Jordan at Bella Union - duncan@bellaunion.com 

Midlake tickets go on-sale 9am on Friday 30th August priced at £20 for London and £18 regionally (subject to per-ticket charge plus order processing fee) and are available from www.livenation.co.uk or www.ticketmaster.co.uk

August 28, 2013 7:25am ET by Live Nation   Comments (0)

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