After building a groundswell of buzz for its arrival, Bastille unveils their anxiously awaited new album Give Me The Future today via Republic Records. Listen to Give Me The Future HERE.
The band set the stage for the record with their latest single “Shut Off The Lights” and announces today they will be performing the song on The Late Late Show with James Corden on February 15th (check local listings). In addition, the song has garnered over 5 million global streams and has incited widespread applause from tastemakers. V Magazine urged it “might just be the highest they’ve ever gone,” while Entertainment Tonight noted it “focuses on staying in the moment and touches on the intimate connection humans experience with one another.” Watch the official music video for “Shut Off The Lights” HERE.
Heightening anticipation, Clash graded the record “8-out-of-10” and raved, “‘Give Me The Future’ offers listeners a healthy amount of escapism to push through and adopt a degree of optimism.” As part of an extensive profile, Associated Press exclaimed, “With techno beats, ‘80s retro futuristic tones and sweeping production, Bastille’s 13-track ‘Give Me The Future’ dives in to the world of science-fiction, exploring the way technology can be a tool for escape.” Forbes applauded the album “a brilliant allegory for the state of the world in 2022, one that is smart and can make you dance” and NME called it “a perfect soundtrack to life after lockdown.”
Not to mention, the band also recently launched the FutureScape Dream Analyser website, where fans can input their dreams and create short-form videos based on their description using AI technology.
Allow Bastille to welcome you to The Future now…
To celebrate the album, Bastille will embark on the US leg of their upcoming “Give Me The Future Tour” this summer. The US tour dates kick off on May 14th in Memphis, TN and make stops in Los Angeles on May 20th, New York on June 7th, and more—see the full list of tour dates below. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.bastillebastille.com/. In April, the band will return to arenas for the first leg of their tour (with many dates already sold out) before heading out to the US for dates in May and June.
Laced with references to sci-fi films and literature, video games and VR, Bastille’s new album Give Me The Future explores a futuristic wonderland free from restrictions—each song a different danceable dreamscape, a place where you can travel back and forward in time to be anyone, do anything, and embrace a new wave of technology, which enables us to get lost inside our imagination.
It’s a record that takes the idea of the limitless possibilities of the future and journeys everywhere from a joyride of escapism on the uplifting “Thelma + Louise” – a tribute to the iconic feminist film on its 20th anniversary – to 80’s New York with the artist Keith Haring on the bright and whistling “Club 57” to a hospital bed in Australia for the devastating but hopeful “No Bad Days.” You’ll hear disco basslines, orchestras of synths, guitars, futuristic gospel, spaceship sounds, euphoric strings, vocoders, talk boxes, a choir of roadies, and host of beats. The title track “Give Me The Future” tips its hat to Phil Collins and The Police, “Shut Off The Lights” is a sonic love letter to Paul Simon’s Graceland, and “Stay Awake” nods to Daft Punk and Quincy Jones.
Having thrown themselves into co-writing for other artists in recent years, for the first time ever on a Bastille album, the band inched open the door to collaborators. Although primarily produced by Dan Smith and long-term production partner Mark Crew, the band also worked with a handful of writers and producers to expand the world. “Distorted Light Beam” was co-written and produced with Ryan Tedder (Adele, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift), who also helped as a sounding board and executive producer for the album. “Thelma + Louise,” “Stay Awake,” and “Back To The Future” were co-written with legendary songwriter Rami Yacoub (Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time”, Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Album). They also worked with British writers Jonny Coffer, Plested, and Dan Priddy to bring the album to life.
You’ll also hear the voice of award-winning actor, musician, writer, creator, producer, director, and activist Riz Ahmed on a spell-binding and evocative spoken word piece called “Promises.” Riz’s piece was a response the album and brings its overarching themes into sharp focus.
Over the course of their previous three albums, Bastille have cemented a reputation for building whole worlds around their releases, often doing so with innovative, award-winning creativity. Give Me The Future is no different, this time accompanied by a fictional, but familiar, tech giant called Future Inc., the creators of an invention called “Futurescape”—a device which allows users to live out their dreams virtually. It’s weaved through every element of the campaign and can be seen in the videos for the previous singles—“Distorted Light Beam,” “Thelma + Louise,” and “No Bad Days.” Watch Bastille talk about the inspiration behind Future Inc. HERE.
GIVE ME THE FUTURE TRACKLISTING:
1. “Distorted Light Beam”
2. “Thelma + Louise”
3. “No Bad Days”
4. “Brave New World” (Interlude)
5. “Back To The Future”
6. “Plug In…”
7. “Promises” (by Riz Ahmed)
8. “Shut Off The Lights”
9. “Stay Awake?”
10. “Give Me The Future”
11. “Club 57”
12. “Total Dissociation” (Interlude)
13. “Future Holds” (feat. BIM)
“GIVE ME THE FUTURE” 2022 US TOUR DATES:
May 14, 2022 Memphis, TN The Soundstage at Graceland
May 15, 2022 Oklahoma City, OK Jones Assembly
May 17, 2022 Mesa, AZ Mesa Amphitheatre
May 18, 2022 Las Vegas, NV Theatre at Virgin Hotel Las Vegas
May 20, 2022 Los Angeles, CA YouTube Theater
May 21, 2022 Paso Robles, CA Vina Robles Amphitheatre
May 23, 2022 Portland, OR Keller Auditorium
May 24, 2022 Seattle, WA Paramount Theatre
May 25, 2022 Bonner, MT KettleHouse Amphitheater
May 28, 2022 St. Paul, MN Palace Theatre
May 29, 2022 Kansas City, MO Uptown Theater
May 31, 2022 St. Louis, MO The Factory at The District
June 1, 2022 Madison, WI The Sylvee
June 3, 2022 Toronto, ON History
June 5, 2022 Washington, DC The Anthem
June 7, 2022 New York, NY Terminal 5
June 8, 2022 Boston, MA Roadrunner
June 10, 2022 Detroit, MI Masonic Temple Theatre
June 11, 2022 Pittsburgh, PA Roxian Theatre
June 12, 2022 Indianapolis, IN WonderRoad Festival
June 14, 2022 New Haven, CT College Street Music Hall
June 15, 2022 Philadelphia, PA The Met
June 17, 2022 Columbus, OH KEMBA Live! Outdoor
ABOUT BASTILLE:
The four-piece has been experimenting and augmenting the Bastille sound since the release of their last album Doom Days in 2019, the conclusion of an unofficial trilogy. Last year, they released the Goosebumps EP, featuring Graham Coxon on “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” and producer Kenny Beats on the title track, as they continued to pen songs that seek to understand and offer escape from the modern human condition. Doom Days received huge critical acclaim and charted in the Top 5 in both the U.K. and U.S., the only U.K. band to have achieved this chart landmark alongside The Beatles and Queen in 2019. The record found the band at their most lyrically provocative, most accomplished, and most vital and charts the course of one night in search of distraction from the surrounding apocalypse (sound familiar?). During the course of 2019, the four-piece continued to cement their reputation as one of the world’s most captivating live bands, having played an extensive two month-long sold-out U.S. and U.K. tour. At the beginning of 2020, Bastille received their sixth Brit nomination and their second nomination for British Group. In January 2021, Bastille was the subject of ReOrchestrated, a documentary film that provided a revelatory and bracingly honest new look into the band’s journey so far, framed through their ReOrchestrated shows and diving into themes of motivation, anxiety, and imposter syndrome. With over 11 million records sold, 6 U.K. Top 40 singles, and 1.5 billion video views, Bastille continues to be one of the world’s most streamed bands.
