Florence + The Machine Release New Single ‘My Love’ and Reveal Upcoming Album Details
Florence + The Machine have released a new tune titled ‘My Love,’ which you can hear below. The synth-heavy, explosive tune will be included on the London band’s fifth studio album, ‘Dance Fever,’ which will be released on May 13.
Following recent singles ‘Heaven Is Here’ and ‘King,’ Florence Welch and co’s latest offering began as an acoustic “sad little poetry” in the singer- songwriter’s kitchen before being converted into a floor-filling anthem evocative of “Nick Cave at the club.”
Welch explained to Greg James on BBC Radio 1 on 10th March: “Sometimes the biggest dance songs, I think, have a really sad core to them.”
Lyrically, Welch was influenced by pre-Raphaelite tragic heroines, gothic fiction by Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, and the films The Wicker Man and The Witch of Midsommar.
‘My Love’ is accompanied with Great Gatsby-inspired official visuals directed by Autumn de Wilde and choreographed by Ryan Heffington, both of whom have previously worked on the group’s two videos.
Tune in here:
‘Dance Fever’ is Florence + The Machine’s follow-up to their 2018 album ‘High As Hope.’ Florence characterised the new album as “a fairytale in 14 songs” while unveiling the cover artwork on 9th March.
The new album, produced by Welch, Jack Antonoff, and Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley, was mostly recorded in London during the COVID pandemic, as Welch anticipated the comeback of clubs, live music, and dancing at festivals. Sessions were scheduled to begin in New York in March 2020, but the global health crisis forced a move to the United Kingdom. ‘Dance Fever’ reintroduces Welch’s more “anthemic” side, with elements of “dance, folk, ’70s Iggy Pop, longing-for-the-road folk pieces a la Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris, and more.”
The singer had become obsessed with choreomania, a Renaissance phenomenon in which large groups of people — often thousands – danced furiously till fatigue, collapse, and death.
“The imagery resonated with Florence, who had been touring nonstop for more than a decade, and in lockdown felt oddly prescient,” a press release reads.
As a result, the composer decided to approach music more “choreographically,” drawing inspiration from “folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages.” Throughout the album, Welch makes fun of her own self-created persona while also playing with the concept of identity. Welch opened up about how she began to view herself as an artist in the context of her gender more after entering her thirties around the time of the release of ‘King.’
“I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires,” she wrote. “To be a performer but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts.
“I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.”
This summer, Florence + The Machine will perform at a number of European festivals, including Flow Festival, Øya Festival, and Mad Cool Festival. Dates for the United Kingdom have yet to be announced.
—Silviya.Y
