Following last week’s release of new single ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, English rockers Arctic Monkeys have officially announced their fifth studio album entitled AM. The album is set for release in Australia on Friday September 6, 2013.
Produced by James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton at Sage & Sound Recording, LA and Rancho De La Luna, Joshua Tree, in the American desert, AM features a host of guest musicians including Queens Of The Stone Age’s Joshua Homme, former The Coral member Bill Ryder-Jones, and Elvis Costello’s drummer Pete Thomas.
The words of John Cooper Clarke, an English performance poet who first became famous during the punk rock era of the late 1970s, are also included on the track ‘I Wanna Be Yours’.
The collaboration with Homme is just the latest in a friendship the group have developed with the desert rock legend. Homme last sang backing vocals on ‘All My Own Stunts’ from the Sheffield four-piece’s last album Suck It And See. He also produced the Arctic Monkeys’ third record, Humbug.
Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner spoke about Homme’s contribution to AM with Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 overnight reports NME. “The Josh thing was very much a case of one of us returning a back scratch to the other… he came down and sort of got us out of a little rut. It’s just fun, it’s friends, extended family now – [they] came round, had a fun night.”
“His contribution to our record is really exciting, it’s probably my favourite,” Turner continued. “The 30 seconds that he’s in there is just, I dunno, it’s like something that I’ve never heard before. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but you know what I’m saying.”
Turner also explained the origin of the album’s name revealing that he stole the idea from The Velvet Underground. “I actually stole it from the Velvet Underground, I’ll just confess that now and get it out of the way. The ‘VU’ record, obviously.”
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Last time the Arctic Monkeys gave the world a taste of what they’d been up to, it was to an audience of billions worldwide to a visual soundtrack of cyclists dressed as luminescent butterflies, performing a suitably patriotic cover of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony – with the band’s take of the legendary Abbey Road cut swiftly rising to the top of the UK charts.
A mite more successful than their Record Store Day exclusive from April 2012, though it was no slouch in the sales stakes itself (peaking at #10), the dual-sided vinyl single of R U Mine?/Electricity was the band’s first new studio material since Suck It And See.
The album will be available on CD, vinyl, special edition vinyl and via digital download.
You can have a listen to the new single “Do I Wanna Know?’ below.
Arctic Monkeys – AM Track Listing
1. Do I Wanna Know?
2. R U Mine?
3. One For The Road
4. Arabella
5. I Want It All
6. No. 1 Party Anthem
7. Mad Sounds
8. Fireside
9. Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?
10. Snap Out Of It
11. Knee Socks
12. I Wanna Be Yours
