Midlake have announced the release of their eagerly awaited fifth studio album, For The Sake Of Bethel Woods.
The album arrives via ATO Records in the US and Bella Union in the UK on Friday, March 18, 2022. Pre-orders are available now. The Texas-based band’s first new music since 2013’s Antiphon, For The Sake Of Bethel Woods, is heralded by today’s premiere of the vibrant first single, “Meanwhile…”
“‘Meanwhile…’ is a song referencing the time in between what transpired leading up to our hiatus in ’14, and what inspired us to reconvene in ’20,” says lead singer Eric Pulido. “The former being an unhealthy and unsustainable place that called for pause and the latter a serendipitous visit from Jesse’s late father (Dave Chandler, depicted on the album cover) in a dream encouraging him to reunite with the band. Everyone had their respective experience during the uncertain time apart culminating in a confident and celebratory return to form.”
Midlake will celebrate their long-overdue return with a North American tour schedule, kicking off October 28 at Fort Worth, TX’s Tulips and then traveling into 2022. Highlights include a very special two-night event alongside The Flaming Lips, set for December 30 and New Year’s Eve at The Caverns in Pelham, TN, a subterranean music venue renowned for its prehistoric natural acoustics and otherworldly beauty. For complete details and ticket information, please visit www.midlakeband.com/tour.
Produced, engineered, and mixed by GRAMMY Award-winner John Congleton (St. Vincent, Explosions in the Sky, Sharon Van Etten) at Elmwood Recording Studio in Dallas, TX, For The Sake Of Bethel Woods marks Midlake’s fifth full-length release and first time recording with an outside producer.
“At age 16 my father and his friend hitchhiked from Ridgewood, NJ to the Woodstock festival in 1969,” says Chandler. “This image of him with his hand to his face appears in the 1970 Woodstock documentary, as the camera pans across the crowd during John Sebastian’s set. My father actually ended up moving to Woodstock, NY – where I grew up – in 1981. For me, the picture of that kid, my dad, forever frozen in time, encapsulates what it means to be in the throes of impressionable and fleeting youth, and all that the magic of music, peace, love, and communion bring to it, whether one knows it at the time or not. (I think he knew it).
Pre-order For The Sake Of Bethel Woods.
For The Sake Of Bethel Woods Tracklist:
Commune
Bethel Woods
Glistening
Exile
Feast of Carrion
Noble
Gone
Meanwhile…
Dawning
The End
Of Desire
