Phoenix Officially Announce Their New Album 'Ti Amo' That'll Be Released On June This Year

The french band Phoenix is one of the most known indie bands in recent times. The Grammy-winning act hasn’t released new music in almost four years. But that is about to end as they’ve finished their upcoming sixth album.

The LP already has a name “Ti Amo,” something very awaited for the fans. Since they’ve been talking about the follow up of “Bankrupt!” since 2014. The fact that a new album is coming isn’t enough good news, as this also means that there will be a tour to promote it.

Let’s talk about the process of making the album

The Versailles native band have announced that they will release a sixth album called “Ti Amo”. They will release it through the record label Glassnote and will come out on June 9th of this year. Ending up the four years without new music from the band.

Phoenix recorded the album in their native France, in Paris, for what is “a turbulent time,” for everybody, due to the political scenario. As they quoted also the context of the refugee crisis, terrorist attacks, especially the attack at the Bataclan, and a surge of far-right politics in France. Despite that, the guys from the band really worked hard on the album for up to eight hours a day, getting new ideas and material, since 2014.

They got an “an old opera house near the Pompidou Center, in the heart of Paris,” installing recording gear in the space to do the recording process. As it was rebuilt as a tech incubator, museum and concert hall. Also, they took the chance to explore new musical boundaries, as singer Thomas Mars said back in 2014: “It’s the beginning of something – the base of the pyramid. Right now, it could go anywhere. It’s this moment of pure freedom. The possibilities are endless. It’s very exciting”.

Recently, after the album was finished the frontman stated: “We did a lot of experimenting. We could go back and say, ‘Let’s get the MIDI from February 12th,’ or, ‘Let’s get the first take'”. The songs would start with improvisations built around a loop created by Brancowitz. Then the interesting parts would be saved, cataloged and edited into songs. Along with that guitarist, Laurent Brancowitz described, in another interview, the sound of the album as a “summer and Italian discos,” being also inspired by it. Maybe this is the reason why the title of the album is in Italian. Besides that the album is also described as “incredibly colorful,” and despite its inspiration of “Italian summer and discos” it rejects “escapism and denial”.

More to come this year for phoenix

But even though the album ends up having a happy theme, the turbulent context around them influenced on Phoenix’s writing process of the album. “At some point when we were in the studio, there was a slight sense of guilt. But we were comforted by the idea that the four of us working wasn’t escapism or denial. When that became clear, the guilt disappeared.” Said singer Mars. But this contrast makes the expectative of the album even bigger.

Since even Daniel Glass, head of Glassnote, said: “I think the record came out of darkness, out of concern. But what’s resulted is this incredibly colorful record. And what we’re hearing from everybody, from KCRW to Apple to Pandora to Spotify, is that they’re loving this record. Because it makes them feel good.” Maybe it’s due to the fact that the core of Phoenix’s music is improvisation, making so hard for any band member, to explain the sounds of the record.

Along with the new album, the guys from Phoenix have already announced a new world tour. Also, last week the band played two gigs on Belgium where they debuted some of their newest material. Introducing “J-Boy,” the opening track of the album, “Role Model,” “Lovelife” and the album’s title track “Ti Amo”. Besides those four songs, according to “The New York Times” writes a song called “Fleur de Lys” will also appear on the album’s tracklist.

They’ll play at America after 3 years

Along with the world tour announcement, and the surprise debut of the songs on a concert. The band also released a taste of “J-Boy,” as the song featured in a Calvin Klein ad. This world tour also means Phoenix will also be playing their first North America tour in over three years. Besides the long month travel around many previously announced festival. Like Atlanta’s Shaky Knees, New York’s Governors Ball and San Diego’s X Fest. All of this alongside with many European festivals they have already booked for the summer such as Vida Festival, Rock in Roma, Melt! Festival, Bilbao BBK Live, and many others.

The concept for the tour, according to Brancowitz, has something to do with “mirrors and duality,” but it’s an idea that the band hasn’t tested yet and is so hard they’re not sure if it will work. But after almost 20 years together, discovering new territory is what keeps the band inspired. “The landscape is too wide, and we’re having too much fun to stop”. said bassist Deck D’Arcy.