Erasure are back with their 20th studio album ‘Radio!! Radio!!’ – check out the lead single, ‘Wings of Love’, below.
The duo, starring Andy Bell and Vince Clarke, launched their latest LP on The BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show on Monday (September 28) morning, with the release coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the pair’s debut album.
Serving as the follow-up to 2020’s ‘The Neon’ and reworked companion piece ‘Day-Glo (Based on a True Story)’ (2022), ‘Radio!! Radio!!’ – out March 12 via Mute – sees the pair “continue to refine and deepen the pop edifice they’ve been building over the past 40 years […] with a set of songs about love, loss and injustice that speaks, powerfully, to our empathy-starved times”.
“Some of the songs are quite reflective of stuff that’s been going on in my life, but not all of them,” says Clarke. “We didn’t have to think about it or talk about it – it just happened that way.”
Reflecting on the grief shared by the band in the years prior to its creation, Bell adds “When you’re a songwriting partnership for so long, it’s very deep, kind of like a soul connection,” says Bell. “You trust that person with your life, and because of the nature of songwriting, you just lay bare your soul. That becomes a sacred space.
“When something traumatic happens, there’s a profound shift in the way you relate to each other – the respect you have for each other,” he elaborates. “Vince has helped me through some terrible times, and so I always wanted to be there for him. I think that’s what this album is about.”
‘Radio!! Radio!!’ is out on March 12 on Mute and available to pre-order from Amazon, HMV, Rough Trade, Townsend and more, with exclusive editions and bundles available on Erasure’s Online Store. Listen to ‘Wings of Love’ below.
Tracklist: Erasure – ‘Radio!! Radio!!’
1. Baby On The Radio Forever
2. Lucky Boy
3. Wings Of Love
4. Listen To The Beauty
5. Where Our Love Hides
6. Star Clouds
7. Where Are All The People?
8. Holy!
9. Jealousy
10. There Ain’t No Place Like Home
In support of the album, Erasure will head on an arena tour, launching in Cardiff on April 25 and travelling around the UK – wrapping at The O2, London on May 12 – before heading across Europe. More dates are yet to be announced.
Clarke will not appear live during the shows, however he will be involved as the tour’s Musical Director, explaining: “I recently moved to California from New York, and I travelled from here to London. The travelling took a toll – it really messed me up. I never seemed to recover from it. I just thought ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’.
“I told Andy, and he made me musical director, and I thought, ‘How fantastic is that?’ I can do all my work and all my direction from here, but I don’t have to leave sunny San Diego.”
Bell adds: “I’m so pleased that we were able to find a way for the tour to work for Vince. He’s always too modest but he’s so much more than the Musical Director, Vince is one of the great loves of my life and everything we do as Erasure we decide together.”
Tickets go on sale on Friday (October 2) at 10am BST and are available here. The full list of dates is below.
APRIL
25 – Utilita Arena, Cardiff*
26 – International Centre, Bournemouth*
28 – M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool*
30 – Utilita Arena, Birmingham*
May
1 – AO Arena, Manchester*
3 – 3Arena, Dublin*
5 – Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham*
6 – Connexin Live, Hull*
8 – First Direct Bank Arena, Leeds*
9 – OVO Hydro, Glasgow*
11 – Brighton Centre, Brighton*
12 – The O2, London*
15 – Palladium, Cologne
16 – Inselparkhalle, Hamburg
18 – Haus Auensee, Leipzig
21 – Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt
22 – Swiss Life Hall, Hannover
24 – Uber Eats Music Hall, Berlin
26 – Royal Arena, Copenhagen
28 – Avicii Arena, Stockholm
*With Ladytron.
