OXBOW SHARE SECOND SINGLE & VIDEO FROM THEIR NEW ALBUM
WATCH “ICY WHITE & CRYSTALLINE” HERE
ANNOUNCING UK & MAINLAND EUROPEAN LIVE DATES
LOVE’S HOLIDAY ARRIVES VIA IPECAC ON 21ST JULY
‘Neither the band nor director knew how things would turn out, joking that they ended up with something like ‘Shiny Happy People, directed by David Lynch’
OXBOW recently announced the arrival of their first new music in six years with the anticipated release of Love’s Holiday, to be released via Ipecac on the 21st July. Today they share their second single and video for album track “Icy White & Crystalline” and announce further live shows in the UK and mainland Europe – dates and details below.
Directed by Northern Irish filmmaker Kiran Acharya, the video for “Icy White & Crystalline” shows Oxbow as you’ve never seen them before, performing in San Francisco on the disused set of The Snow Queen. The video not only captures the band’s ferocious live energy, but literally shows them in a new light. “Icy White & Crystalline is about as spontaneous as filmmaking can be,” says Acharya. “We had many ideas on the go, including an abstract graphic approach inspired by the work of Josef Albers. But Eugene found the set of The Snow Queen with 24 hours to go and said “this is the place”. We loaded in, set up as live, strapped an icicle to the microphone and went for it.” The result speak’s to Oxbow’s formidable reputation as performers, showcasing one of the most direct songs on Love’s Holiday. Neither the band nor director knew how things would turn out, joking that they ended up with something like ‘Shiny Happy People, directed by David Lynch’.
About the making of the video Eugene S. Robinson comments, “Funny going all the way to a UK-based filmmaker/journo from Belfast in Kiran Acharya for directing the video for Icy White & Crystalline but if you take the same elements and expect something different, you’re on the road to madness. Which is precisely why we used wildly disparate elements to visualize our first “live” music video for Love’s Holiday. Sixteen takes all the way through…’you don’t know how…hearts burn” is the opening lyric. For probably the best of all reasons here: this video almost killed us to make.”
Niko Wenner continues, “Icy White & Crystalline” began as a blown-out ferocious rehearsal phone-recording we’ve aimed to match in high fidelity, the bridge another improv, the two joined make a classic Oxbow banger we’ll doubtless rock live for as long as we plug-in. Enjoy!”
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR “ICY WHITE & CRYSTALLINE” BELOW
REVISIT THE VIDEO FOR “1000 HOURS” BELOW
Previous OXBOW albums found their impetus in a lyrical framework provided by Robinson, with Wenner applying his musical compositions to the singer’s narratives. But Love’s Holiday began with the music. “The music was chiefly inspired by and written for my family. We’ve had two children born and my father died while writing and working on this record,” Wenner says. “The songs are just a collection of music that I sang to my babies and then wrote guitar parts for and brought to the band as OXBOW songs.” Love, the guitarist confirms, was the organising principle behind these songs, even if they still carry the band’s signature brand of drama and conflict.
“I’ve always been chagrined that no one understood that our songs were love songs,” Robinson says while reflecting on the band’s output from the last 35 years. Love may not have been the most obvious muse in their earlier work, but the subject has never been more apparent than now.
One of the more apparent manifestations of this new approach is the orchestration on Love’s Holiday. OXBOW has often employed auxiliary instrumentation as an addendum to the guitars on their recordings, but this time around, human voices are the primary addition. Kristin Hayter (Lingua Ignota) lends her soaring operatic vocals to “Lovely Murk.” The layered choral bed of “1000 Hours” was provided by Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (Jellyfish, Beck). The album also features a fifteen-person choir plus strings, oboe, flute, and clarinet also find a place within the album.
For all the differences in the process, Love’s Holiday is still very much an OXBOW album. Across its ten tracks, Love’s Holiday can feel feverish, disorienting, hostile, beguiling, defeated, and triumphant.
The album art comes from Aaron Turner (Isis, Sumac), and is available on CD, Digital and three vinyl variants including Ipecac exclusive Marbled Grey and Indie Exclusive Red. Preorder here.
Love’s Holiday album cover
LOVE’S HOLIDAY TRACK LISTING:
1. DEAD AHEAD
3. LOVELY MURK
4. 1000 HOURS
5. ALL GONE
6. THE NIGHT THE ROOM STARTED BURNING
7. ” “
8. MILLION DOLLAR WEEKEND
9. THE SECOND TALK
10. GUNWALE
OXBOW LIVE DATES SEPTEMBER 2023
Friday, September 01, 2023 UK Glasgow Broadcast
Saturday, September 02, 2023 UK Birmingham Supersonic festival
Sunday, September 03, 2023 UK Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Monday, September 04, 2023 UK Bristol Exchange
Tuesday, September 05, 2023 UK London Studio 9294
Wednesday, September 06, 2023 BE Kortrijk Wilde Westen
Thursday, September 07, 2023 BE Brussels Botanique
Friday, September 08, 2023 NL Nijmegen Merleyn
Saturday, September 09, 2023 LUX Tetange Human’s World festival (free entry)
Sunday, September 10, 2023 DE Bochum Die Trompete
Monday, 11 September 2023 AT Vienna Volkstheatre Rote Bar
Tuesday, 12 September 2023 PL Wroclaw Liverpool
Wednesday, 13 September 2023 PL Warsaw Hydrozagadka
Thursday, 14 September 2023 DE Berlin Roadrunners Paradise
Friday, 15 September 2023 DE Hamburg Hafenklang
Saturday, 16 September 2023 DK Aalborg Lasher fest
