Following a formidable opening salvo - the BBC 6music play listed single ‘Controller’ - Hercules & Love Affair announce the release of their fourth studio album ‘Omnion’ on September 1st on mr.intl/Skint/BMG.
Renowned for their exuberant stage show and Andy Butler's knack for elegant and timely productions, Hercules & Love Affair have - unconsciously - hit the zeitgeist with eleven songs that sparkle with faith and tolerance as a response to our troubling times.
“Sometimes songs are born out of an intense moment that has nothing to do with club music,” explains Hercules main man Andy Butler. “…I’m not just a "head" (read techno-head, house-head, disco-head)….I’m touched just as much by, say, Sinead O’Connor accompanied only by a guitar, singing an intensely spirited message.”
Helping Butler realise this new dynamic are a world class cast of singers including The Horrors’ Faris Badwan, the Arab World’s most influential indie band Mashrou’ Leila, New York singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten, and Icelandic sister act Sísý Ey, as well as regular collaborators Rouge Mary and Gustaph - and Butler himself on the intensely personal electro ballad ‘Fools Wear Crowns’. Having had “a massive, massive relationship with drugs and clubs” since his youth, culminating in “a brutal drug addiction that saw me overdosed in hospital every weekend”, ButIer has been clean for four years and ‘Omnion’ is rich with his re-immersion in the wider world, in all its ugliness and beauty.
The title track and new single ‘Omnion' available from today and premiered on Pitchfork is “a childlike dialogue with a higher entity voiced through the filter of a broken adult male ” – and features vocals from Sharon Van Etten. In turn, Butler recently remixed Van Etten’s single ‘Not Myself’, a heart wrenching response to the Orlando Pulse Club massacre. Listen to ‘Omnium’ here.
‘Controller’, featuring Faris Badwan, is the album’s seamy ‘80s electro-house underbelly, with a sub-dom, master-and-servant subtext to Badwan’s lyric. Taking things back to the dance floor is upbeat industrial disco stomper ‘Rejoice’, featuring Hercules regular Rouge Mary. Rouge also joins Hamed Sinno of Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila, exchanging verses in Arabic on the graceful album standout ‘Are You Certain?’.
Raised in Denver Colorado where he cut his teeth as a teenage DJ, Butler escaped to New York, and forged Hercules & Love Affair as an outlet for his songs. From the retro-futurist Paradise Garage grooves of eponymous 2008 debut, with longtime friend ANOHNI on the classic, 'Blind', via thoughtful elegiac songwriting of 2011’s ‘Blue Songs’, to the bumping, grittier pulse of 2014’s ‘The Feast of the Broken Heart’ Butler has again nailed a body of work that bridges the dance floor and home listening. ‘Omnion’ moves his game up a notch and reflects his current “hypersensitivity to stuff going on. Sometimes the dance floor represents a decision to avoid dialogue with the wider world, to commune with people but not really talk, but humans need to challenge themselves and step it up. Not that everything has to be so serious but this Hercules record is.”
Hercules are taking their visually spectacular new stage show – “A feast for the eyes” Creative Review – to festivals throughout the summer. An autumn headline tour is to be announced soon.
Tracklisting
- Omnion (feat. Sharon Van Etten)
- Controller (feat. Faris Badwan)
- Rejoice (feat. Rouge Mary)
- Are You Still Certain? (feat. Mashrou' Leila)
- Running (feat. Sisy Ey)
- Fools Wear Crowns
- Lies (feat. Gustaph)
- Wild Child (feat. Rouge Mary)
- My Curse and Cure (feat. Gustaph)
- Through Your Atmosphere (feat. Faris Badwan)
- Epilogue (feat. Gustaph)
Forthcoming dates
- 25th June - Block9, Glastonbury Festival, Pilton (UK) [Hercules Soundsystem]
- 8th July - Tauron Nowamuzyka, Katowice (Poland)
- 14th July - Obonjan Festival, Otok (Croatia)
- 15th July - Melt Festival, Berlin (Germany)
- 22nd July - Tramlines Festival, Sheffield (UK) [Andy Butler DJ set]
- 11th August - Houghton Festival, Kings Lynn (UK)
- 13th August - Boomtown Festival, Winchester [UK] (Andy Butler DJ set)
- 25th August - Rock en Seine, Paris (France)
- 27th August - Stephenson Works, Newcastle (UK)
- 1st September - Into the Great Wide Open, Vlieland (Netherlands)
- 9th September - Festival No. 6, Portmeirion (Wales)
- 16th September - Kutxa Kultur Festival, San Sebastian (Spain)
- 19th October - ADE at Paradiso, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- 10th November - Metropop Festival, Lausanne (Switzerland)
More dates to be announced soon!