Following their critically acclaimed UK Top 20 album “As Days Get Dark”, Arab Strap return with their second long player for Mogwai’s Rock Action Records. ‘I’m totally fine with it don’t give a fuck anymore ’ is due 10th May 2024.
Coinciding with this new album announcement is the release today of the first single, “Bliss”, a song that perfectly exemplifies their most sonically expansive album to date. An almost entirely electronic disco banger with just a hint of trusty guitar, it’s Arab Strap at their most immediate and vital. Lyrically, the song addresses the horrors of online hate, as vocalist Aidan Moffat says, “It’s about women being terrorised online; it’s about cowardice and bigotry. It’s about how we expose ourselves on social platforms while hiding alone at home. But you can dance to it too!” The track comes accompanied by a video directed by award-winning, Glasgow-based director Ains featuring a striking dancer personifying a character trapped in a dystopian realm.
Watch the video for ‘Bliss’ – BELOW:
The album examines many more urgent, timely themes, such as conspiracy theories, online addiction, and the forgotten souls of our seemingly connected planet, all wrapped up in the most adventurous earworms of the band’s career. The result is a record loaded with what Moffat calls “a quiet anger”, an album with equal parts rage and love for “the tangible world and intangible world, and which one you choose to believe and engage with.”
Almost 28 years after their debut, Arab Strap have never sounded more essential, and this new record is a fierce testament to their laser focus on wider horizons. Written and performed exclusively by Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat, and finessed with longtime collaborator Paul Savage, the album furthers the band’s transformation from swooning, slow-core romantics to raging, alt-pop chroniclers.
‘I’m totally fine with it don’t give a fuck anymore ’ may sound like the title of an album by a band giving up (it’s just a text from the band’s live drummer that Moffat thought was funny), but in reality, it’s an album that stands to define a new creative period for Arab Strap clearly. With the band having recently wrapped up a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of their 1998 album ‘Philophobia’, this new album feels charged by a desire to move forward and explore new terrain. “The tour’s been fun, but I’ll be glad it’s over so we can move on,” laughs Middleton while Moffat echoes him. “The Philophobia gigs have been a way of saying goodbye to the old us,” he says. “It was a very gentle, quiet tour, so I expect this year we’ll just be playing banger after banger – I think we’ve earned the right to make some noise now.”
Today, The band announced a series of UK live shows to follow the new album release with a fan ticket pre-sale from 10 am tomorrow, Wednesday, 24th January, and then on general sale at 10 am Friday, 26th January.
You can enjoy “banger after banger” from Arab Strap at the following venues throughout 2024;
20th May Carlisle – The Brickyard
21st May Sunderland Fire Station
22nd May Birmingham Castle & Falcon
23rd May Bristol Lantern
24th May London Koko
25th May Manchester Gorilla
26th May Leeds Brudenell
21st Sept Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom
Tickets for all shows available now via https://www.arabstrap.scot/
Album tracklisting;
Allatonceness
Bliss
Sociometer Blues
Hide Your Fires
Summer Season
Molehills
Strawberry Moon
You’re Not There
Haven’t You Heard
Safe & Well
Dreg Queen
Turn Off The Light
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