British indie-pop trailblazers The Kooks release their sixth studio album, ‘10 TRACKS TO ECHO IN THE DARK’. A fresh sounding, electronic-tinged evolution of their iconic sound. The band have taken a fresh approach to releasing the album; being released in three parts, the first two parts consisting of 3-track EP releases and the final part – out today – adding a further four tracks to make up the full LP.
Alongside the album, the band unveil the music video for latest single cut ‘Cold Heart’. Directed by Polocho and shot in London, the visual finds the band inside a futuristic space station, as alien beings begin ‘experiments’ on them. A homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the video incorporates an AI ‘cold heart’, which trembles in frustration when the aliens find themselves warming to the ‘humans’, eventually getting lost in dance as the band play their music.
After a worldwide arena tour, the release of their 2018 UK Top Ten album ‘Let’s Go Sunshine’ saw the band topping the bill at festivals across Europe and at home. The streaming boom had opened up The Kooks to a new audience of young fans who loved their distinctive brand of indie pop and were itching to see them play live.
Coming off the back of a punishing tour schedule, frontman Luke Pritchard vowed to take a bit of a breather. But instead, found himself right back in the studio.
“I started going to Berlin for three or four days at a time. I was really affected by Brexit and I wanted to make a bit of a statement by creating a European record,” he explains. “We’re a European band, we practically lived out there and have so much love for Europe, so we wanted to keep that connection.”
Berlin has long been something of a creative Mecca for artists from all over the world and Pritchard found himself moving in those circles, meeting the collaborators he would work with on their behemoth of a sixth album, ‘10 TRACKS TO ECHO IN THE DARK’. The period was one of work, inspiration and creativity as opposed to partying. “I wasn’t doing any drugs,” Pritchard attests. “It was more dive bars and a bottle of whiskey than Berghain.”
The environment quickly started to work its magic. “A lot of songwriters have found refuge in Berlin”, he says. “It’s a free place, it’s not so consumed by commerciality. I was looking for something a bit rawer, a little bit more minimal. Sometimes you just pick up these nuances somewhere. It’s not necessarily the people, it’s the place.”
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