Ash celebrated Ash Wednesday in true style yesterday playing two shows in one day. The first was at RAK Studios in London where the band played a short acoustic set followed by a Meet & Greet for fans who pledged on Pledge Music. The band, who are in London this week finishing up their new album Kablammo! recording strings at British Grove Studios, gave fans an exclusive playback of their comeback single “Cocoon”.
Later that evening the band took to the stage at The Barfly in London where they tore through a greatest hits set that included four tracks from Kablammo! including the live debut of “Cocoon”, “Evil Kinevel” and “Shut Down”. The setlists for both shows were as follows:
RAK Studios, London
Jack Names the Planets
What Deaner Was Talking About (Ween cover)
Lost in You
Shut Down (Live debut)
Sometimes
The Barfly, London
Fortune
A Life Less Ordinary
Wildsurf
Goldfinger
Evil Eye
Evil Kinevel (Live debut)
Kung Fu
Cocoon (Live debut)
Oh Yeah
Shut Down
Shining Light
Orpheus
Girl From Mars
Ash have announced they’ll be heading out on a UK tour in June to promote new album Kablammo!. Tickets on sale from 9am on February 20th.
The band have also been confirmed for the MBC festival in Spain in April and the Long Division and Isle of Wight festivals in June. The dates are as follows:
April 03/05 - MBC Festival, Puerto de Sagunto, Spain June 07 - Whelan’s, Dublin, Ireland June 08 - The Limelight 2, Belfast, United Kingdom June 09 - The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, United Kingdom June 11 - Scala, London, United Kingdom June 12 - Sound Control, Manchester, United Kingdom June 13 - Long Division Festival, Wakefield, United Kingdom June 14 - Isle of Wight Festival, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom
Ash have announced their ‘Ash Wednesday’ return with “Cocoon” the first single from their forthcoming studio album Kablammo!
“Cocoon” is a compact two and half minute blast of pure power pop, the type that has made Ash one of the country’s best-loved bands. “It’s Ash at their frenetic best: a wall of guitars and a shot of adrenaline with a sweet melodic chaser”, says Rick McMurray . “One of the earliest songs written for the forthcoming album, you can hear how excited the three of us are to be back in the same room. Having this much fun crammed into two and a half minutes is probably illegal.”
Commenting on the new album Kablammo! - “After a wait of 8 years, and a long string of singles, we’ve gone on to do what we said we would never do again: we’ve only gone and recorded a brand new album!”
“We set out to capture the live essence of Ash, the closest sonic predecessor would be 2004’s Meltdown, with the songwriting of the Free All Angels singles. We’ve stripped away the electronic overtones of the A-Z series and made a streamlined blazing guitar record.”
“On every song you can hear what makes this band tick, our beating (atomic) heart. It’s a visceral expression of what has driven us since 1992. Passion, melody and Ash.”
Ash will showcase songs from the new album at a special one off show at London’s Barfly tonight, 120 tickets are available from 9am today, at the Ash-tastic price of £19.77.
Ash have today announed that their new studio album is now available for pre-order at PledgeMusic. The currently untitled album, their first full-length since Twilight of the Innocents in 2007, will be released early in 2015.
By ordering your copy of the new Ash album at PledgeMusic, you will gain access to exclusive content that will bring you closer to the band, the recording process, and Ash’s journey towards the release of the record than you’ve ever been before. You’ll receive updates directly from the studio and see the record’s tracklisting and artwork before anyone else.
There are a whole host of PledgeMusic exclusive items, such as signed handwritten lyric prints, and rare vinyl test pressings most of these are limited so order early to avoid disappointment.
Tim Wheeler has today released the music video for his new single “Vigil”. The video was filmed in New Hampshire last month with director by Alex Turvey and cameraman Jeremy Lynch.
Ash returned to the live arena this past weekend playing two shows in New York and New Jersey and gave a live debut to a new song with the working title “Fortune”. The setlist for both shows was as follows:
Tim Wheeler has posted an audio stream of the first single from his upcoming solo album Lost Domain. The track “Vigil” can be heard above. Tim said of the track:
It’s about the actual time that my dad died and we were at his bedside. We were by his bedside for three days, holding his hand, some of us sleeping on the floor and watching the sun come up over the mountains outside every morning. It was a really hard time, but kind of a beautiful time as well, with the closeness of the family. We were glad that we all got to be there and share that time together.
Tim will be heading to New Hampshire this weekend to shoot a promo video for the single.
Ash will release Letters from Alphabet City for Cassette Store Day on September 27th 2014. The limited edition cassette features 15 tracks from the A-Z Series hand picked by the band themselves.
SIDE 1
Return of White Rabbit / Arcadia / True Love 1980 / Dionysian Urge / Binary / Neon / Gallows Hill
SIDE 2
Dare to Dream / Tracers / Spellbound / The Dead Disciples / War With Me / Summer Snow / Midnight in the Garden / There is Hope Again
The cassette will be avaliable from independent record shops on Cassette Store Day and online the very next day from Post/Pop Records and ash-official.com.
