When We Were Animals is the new full-length album from singer, songwriter, bestselling Kindle Singles author and storyteller Mishka Shubaly, due June 2nd, (vinyl, CD and digital) on Widemouth Records. Special guests including Cait O’Riordan (The Pogues), Adrian Grenier (Entourage) and Star Anna feature on Shubaly’s funniest, grimiest, most acidic collection of story-songs to date. XS Noize is pleased to premiere the fantastic video for ‘Destructible’ from the album – check it out below.
Animals was recorded in a state of quasi-homelessness between motel rooms, couches, an unheated trailer and housesitting for friends during one of the most run-and-gun times in Shubaly’s adult life. Astonishingly, this didn’t result in a sketchy, edgy mess, but a lavish production, his first just-might-be-a-classic record.
Check out the XS Noize exclusive premiere of ‘Destructible’ – BELOW:
Lyrically, Animals is about the aftermath: the end of love, the hangover, the comedown, life after addiction. Despite or perhaps because of the dark material, the record still crackles with black humour, a brutal sort of tenderness, and defiant fire. A scene we return to again and again is two lonely desperate people doing lonely desperate things together… and bringing out the absolute worst in each other. Shubaly’s preferred love is one that leaves scars, many of them self-inflicted. On this record, Shubaly zeroes in on his connections with the opposite sex in an uncomfortable moral growth spurt. “I’ll identify as a recovering misogynist working hard to support feminism,” Shubaly says. “This record shows some personal shortcomings in high relief. That’s by design— it’s time for us to call ourselves out.” For that alone, in our 2018 landscape where soap-boxers are more apt to point fingers online than to examine, expose and excise their own harmful impulses, Animals is an achievement.
Special guests on When We Were Animals include Cait O’Riordan (The Pogues), Adrian Grenier (Entourage), Bill Whitten (Grand Mal) and Star Anna. More than on any other record, Shubaly delivers the pitch-black humour that gained him a devoted international following laced into an intoxicating new sound, cast and crew.
In 2011, Shubaly began publishing a series of mini-memoirs via Amazon Kindle Singles (six #1 bestsellers, more than 200,000 copies sold in five different languages). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote the foreword for his collection. His account of getting shipwrecked for The Moth was broadcast nationally on NPR and around the world. Shubaly’s full-length memoir I Swear I’ll Make it Up to You (Hachette) was published in 2016 and has garnered praise from The Guardian, Publisher’s Weekly, GQ, Men’s Journal, and Brooklyn Magazine. His roadwork— 145 shows in 5 countries last year— has won him accolades from Portland, OR to New York and the UK. His writing workshop at Yale has been hailed by students as ‘transformative.’
Mishka Shubaly UK Tour Dates
Saturday 9th June
Hairy Dog, Derby (matinee show)
Saturday 9th June
The Castle Hotel, Manchester
Tuesday 12th June
Al’s Dime Bar, Bradford
Wednesday 13th June
Raynor Lounge @ Bar One, Sheffield
Thursday 14th June
O2 Academy 2, Newcastle
Saturday 16th June
13th Note, Glasgow
Sunday 17th June
Santiago’s, Leeds
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Monday 18thJune
The Bell Inn, Bath
with Glenn Wool
Tuesday 19th June
The Louisiana, Bristol
Wednesday 20th June
Clwb ifor Bach, Cardiff
Thursday 21st June
Watering Hole, Perranporth
Friday 22nd June
The Underground, Plymouth
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Saturday 23rd June
Cheese & Grain Festival, Frome
Sunday 24th June
Katie Firzgerald’s, Stourbridge
wwwkatiefitzgeralds.moonfruit.com
Thursday 28th June
Slaughtered Lamb, London
with Glenn Wool
Sunday 1st July
The Prince Albert, Brighton
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Monday 2nd July
The Cloth Hall, Smarden
Tuesday 3rd July
Kansas Smitty’s, London
www.kansasmittys.com
Wednesday 4th July
The Cellar, Oxford
Thursday 5th July
The Portland, Cambridge
Friday 6th July
Rowbarge, Guildford
www.therowbargeguildford.com/index
Saturday 7th July
The Brass Monkey, Hastings
www.thebrassmonkeyhastings.com
Sunday 8th July
Quay Arts, Isle Of Wight
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