Bastille Share Euphoric New Single, ‘Shut Off The Lights’
The band’s much-anticipated new album, ‘Give Me The Future’ is set for release on February 4.
No matter what limitless opportunities for escape modern technology presents us with, there’s nothing quite like real, human connection. On their new single, “Shut Off The Lights”, Bastille pull themselves out of the metaverse to rediscover the joys of real life surrounded by loved ones.
“Shut Off The Lights” is set to a gleaming guitar melody and infectious beat, embracing 80’s influences whilst maintaining the catchy, euphoric alt-pop brilliance that’s made Bastille one of Britain’s biggest bands. The future festival anthem offers a different perspective to much of their new album, Give Me The Future instead asking us to step away from our screens and the escapism offered online, and join in with what’s unfolding in front of us now – “Shut off the lights, you don’t need them to dance.”
Frontman Dan Smith says, “Shut Off The Lights” is about being pulled out of your future-fearing anxieties by the person you’re lying next to. It’s about intimacy and physical connection, rejecting our worries about life and the future for a minute, and unplugging from it all to really be present. It’s a fun, real, human moment in the middle of this big album. But also, it’s a song that nods back to Paul Simon’s Graceland and a load of music we love. It made us want to dance around the studio and is ridiculously fun to play live.”
Laced with references to sci-fi films and literature, video games and VR, Bastille’s new album Give Me The Future explores a futuristic wonderland free from restrictions – each song a different danceable dreamscape, a place where you can travel back and forward in time to be anyone, do anything, and embrace a new wave of technology, which enables us to get lost inside our imagination.
It’s a record that takes the idea of the limitless possibilities of the future and journeys everywhere from a joyride of escapism on the uplifting “Thelma + Louise” – a tribute to the iconic feminist film on its 20th anniversary, to 80’s New York with the artist Keith Haring on the bright and whistling “Club 57”, to a hospital bed in Australia for the devastating but hopeful “No Bad Days”. You’ll hear disco basslines, orchestras of synths, guitars, futuristic gospel, spaceship sounds, euphoric strings, vocoders, talk boxes, a choir of roadies and host of beats.
The title track, Give Me The Future tips its hat to Phil Collins and The Police, “Shut Off The Lights” is a sonic love letter to Paul Simon’s Graceland and “Stay Awake” nods to Daft Punk and Quincy Jones.
To celebrate the release of Give Me The Future out on February 4, Bastille will perform a series of intimate outstore shows across the UK, in partnership with the UK’s independent record stores. Then in April, the band will return to arenas for the first leg of their ‘Give Me The Future’ tour (with many dates already sold out) before heading out to the US for dates in May and June.
Bastille’s ‘Give Me The Future’ Tour 2022 dates are as follows:
Thursday 31 March – Bournemouth International Centre, UK NEW DATE ADDED
Friday 01 April – Hull Bonus Arena, UK NEW DATE ADDED
Thursday 07 April – London, The O2, UK
Friday 08 April – Manchester, AO Arena, UK
Sunday 10 April – Glasgow, O2 Academy, UK SOLD OUT
Monday 11 April – Glasgow, O2 Academy, UK
Wednesday 13 April – Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena, UK
Thursday 14 April – Birmingham, O2 Academy, UK SOLD OUT
Friday 15 April – Birmingham, O2 Academy, UK SOLD OUT
Sunday 17 April – Plymouth Pavilions, UK
Monday 18 April – Brighton Centre, UK
