The British shoegaze pioneers are headed back to the Palace Theatre in Saint Paul and will be performing on October 4, 2023. Slowdive‘s stellar new album was released earlier this month and they are gearing up to take these new songs to the stage across 16 shows in 14 cities throughout North America. With the majority of dates already sold out on this tour, you’d best act fast and secure your spot for the Saint Paul concert before the tickets are all gone to this one as well.
Los Angeles duo, Drab Majesty, will opening the shows on this tour for Slowdive. Earlier this summer Drab Majesty released the song “Vanity” which features Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell on the lead single to their upcoming EP An Object in Motion.
Tickets for this 18+ show are currently still available here. Doors open at 6:30pm with music starting at 7:30pm.
Slowdive announce their new album, everything is alive, out September 1st on Dead
Oceans, present the video for lead single, “kisses,” and unveil a North American, UK and
Ireland tour (on sale Friday, June 23rd at 10am local time here). Six years after the groupʼs
monumental return and self-titled album, everything is alive finds Slowdive—vocalists and
guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin,
and drummer Simon Scott—locating ever more contours of its immersive, elemental sound.
“Kisses” arrives as Slowdiveʼs surest pop moment yet, set to Naples-by-night via its Noel
Paul-directed video.The fifth album from shoegaze giants Slowdive contains the duality of a familiar internal
language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings. everything is alive is transportive,
searching and aglow, the work of a classic band continuing to project its unmistakable voice
to the future. Reflecting on lead single “kisses,” Halstead said, “It wouldnʼt feel right to make a
really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful.”On the video, a dreamlike portrait of a Neapolitan teen giving rides to everyone he knows,
Paul says “If this video evokes emotion, itʼs largely due to our excellent cast. In particular
Charlie and Claudia, two courageous and beautiful souls who threw themselves into their
roles and set a tone of fearless vulnerability.”Owing to their deep history, thereʼs a palpable familial energy to Slowdive in 2023. everything
is alive is dedicated to Goswellʼs mother and Scottʼs father, who both died in 2020. “There
were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Those crossroads are
reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of Slowdiveʼs music; everything is alive is heavy
with experience, but each note is poised, wise, and necessarily pitched to hope. Its unique
alchemy subtly embodies both sadness and gratitude, groundedness and uplifts.The new record began with Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at
home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived of everything is alive
as a “more minimal electronic record.” Slowdiveʼs collective decision-making ultimately drew
the group back towards their signature reverb-drenched guitars, but that first concept seeped
into the compositions. “As a band, when weʼre all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger
material. Weʼve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we
all meet in the middle.” Halstead says. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell
adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”A multi-year recording process began in fall 2020 at Courtyard Studio, where theyʼve
historically recorded, and then moved to Oxfordshire and into the Wolds of Lincolnshire and
back to Neilʼs own Cornish studio. By early 2022, the band brought in Shawn Everett (The War
On Drugs, Alvvays, SZA) to mix six of the recordʼs eight tracks.everything is alive is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature
of life and the universal touch points within it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating
80ʼs electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as
something made for the future; which figures, as their fanbase has grown younger and
younger as time has gone on, and their influence on forward thinking musical artists
continues to prevail.For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here
Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the
end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is optimistic.
