Indie pop band The Kooks announced their sixth studio album 10 TRACKS TO ECHO IN THE DARK back in January. Fans won’t have to wait until the album’s release on July 22, 2022 to hear new music from the group. Even then, the first three songs from the album were available as EPs. At the same time, the music video for the single “Connections” was released.
The Kooks came up with the following release strategy for 10 TRACKS TO ECHO IN THE DARK: First, two EPs, each with three tracks, would be released before the album would be completed with four more songs. Now they released a live acoustic version of their new song “Beautiful World” with celebrity support: We can watch singer Luke Pritchard together with Milky Chance as they perform the song with their guitars in a Berlin control room:
It also reportedly filmed an in-depth interview with Milky Chance, scheduled to go online June 10, and a short documentary filmed at Teufelsberg, a former Cold War NSA listening station turned street art gallery .
The full tracklist of the album reads as follows:
1. ‘Connection’
2. ‘Cold Heart’
3. ‘Jesse James’
4. ‘Closer’
5. ‘Sailing On A Dream’
6. ‘Beautiful World’
7. ‘Modern Days’
8. ‘Oasis’
9. ’25’
10. ‘Without A Doubt’
It is said that singer Luke Pritchard has spent a lot of time in Berlin since the band from Brighton’s last album and was musically inspired there. In addition, the record is also shaped by the aftermath of Brexit. “We’re a European band, we’ve lived pretty much everywhere out there. We just love Europe so much that we wanted to keep that connection,” Pritchard said.
Inspired by the creative scene in Berlin, he was able to win Tobias Kuhn (Miles, Monta) as co-songwriter and producer (Mark Forster, Adel Tawil, Clueso, Tomte and many more) for the new album. Several new songs by The Kooks were created in the German capital in this way. However, due to the start of the corona pandemic, most of the songs had to be recorded in Great Britain.
In the pandemic, Pritchard also had enough time to look at his band’s previous albums – and was very proud and happy about it. That’s why the new album should also be understood as a thank you to the fans for their support over the years, says Pritchard.
10 TRACKS TO ECHO IN THE DARK is scheduled for release on July 22nd. The previous album LET’S GO SUNSHINE was released in 2018.