American duo MGMT are dropping their new album next month, which was heralded by their newest single ‘Your Life Is A Lie’ with perhaps the weirdest/coolest two minutes of music video for the year and yesterday the psychedelic twosome were announced as part of the Falls Festival 2013 lineup.
Playing all three legs of the New Year’s festival in Lorne, Marion Bay, and (for the first time in Falls history) Byron Bay, as well as Western Australia’s Southbound Festival, MGMT will be back down under for the first time since playing Future Festival in 2011 and tell Triple J that they’re planning something special to ring in the new year.
Andrew VanWyngarden says the band would love to “do something special,” in an interview with the radio station. “If we were playing as the clock struck midnight we’d love to do something like a cover song, or a crazy light show or have some fire dancers,” he said. “We probably wouldn’t fire dance ourselves – we’d hire someone – I don’t think it would look too good if we did it on the fly.”
But MGMT may have something more exciting planned, noting their interest with working with fellow festival bill act Pond. “We always try to get up in the mix with those guys,” says VanWyngarden; Pond along with their sister outfit Tame Impala not only share the psychedelic rock influences with MGMT, but also a stage with Tame Impala having supported the band for their 2010 US Tour. “Maybe we’ll do something crazy together,” added VanWyngarden. “We always try to get up in the mix with those guys.” – MGMT
Knowing ex-bassist-now-Pond-semi-frontman Nick Allbrook, he’d probably welcome the collaboration, having recently completed a record with UK kaleidoscopic punks The Horrors under the banner of his Allbrook/Avery side-project (with fellow Pond/Tame Impala/The Growl member Cam Avery).
Pond’s Falls Festival and Southbound slots are also the first of the band’s live dates since releasing their latest album, Hobo Rocket, which our Tone Deaf reviewer called their “most concise yet, paring back their sprawling, fiddly jams into succinct spacey textures and gusts of tuneful distortion; like punch-lines without the long-winded set-up.”
Meanwhile MGMT release their latest, self-titled release next month ahead of the New Year’s visit to Australia. Speaking of the highly anticipated third album, VanWyngarden described it as “less distraught, nervous and paranoid” compared to the polarising Congratulations.
“We’re feeling a little bit more at ease and ready to take whatever comes our way,” said VanWyngarden. “First and foremost we feel like we’ve made a really good album that reflects who we are right now, which is a little bit less distraught, nervous and paranoid than we were three years ago. For lots of different reasons, 2010 was a wild ride for us.”
Falls Festival 2013 Lineup
Vampire Weekend
The Roots
Grizzly Bear
MGMT
Violent Femmes
Neil Finn
The Wombats
Pond
The Cat Empire
!!! (chk chk chk)
Crystal Fighters
White Denim
Chet Faker
London Grammar
Solange
Bonobo
Asta
Big Scary
Bombino
Crystal Fighters
Cyril Hahn
Flight Facilities
Gossling
Hanni El Khatib
Hermitude
James Vincent McMorrow
The Preatures
Rüfüs
Tom Odell
BOOGIE NIGHTS
The Correspondents
Hot 8 Brass Band
Hot Dub Time Machine
Late Nite Tuff Guy
Legs Akimbo
Mountain Mochakilimanjaro
Tom Thum
Falls Festival 2013 Dates
Marion Bay, TAS: December 29, 2013 – January 01, 2014 (All Ages)
Byron Bay, NSW: December 31, 2013 – January 03, 2014 (18+)
Lorne, VIC: December 28, 2013 – January 01, 2014 (18+)
Ticket ballot now open at http://fallsfestival.com.au/
