NEWS
The Kooks return with three new singles from new album
28 January 2022
The Kooks have announced their sixth studio album.
Luke Pritchard and co planned to take a break in 2018, following extensive touring across the globe in support of their LP 'Let's Go Sunshine'.
Now, the indie-pop group are back with the first taste of their upcoming three-part collection, ‘10 TRACKS TO ECHO IN THE DARK’, with the singles 'Connection', Jesse James' and 'Modern Days' now available on streaming platforms as the EP, ‘CONNECTION - ECHO IN THE DARK PART 1’.
Luke, 36, explained how felt compelled to make an album that represents The Kooks as a "European band" after being "really affected by Brexit".
He said: “I started going to Berlin for three or four days at a time. I was really affected by Brexit and I wanted to make a bit of a statement by creating a European record.
“We’re a European band, we practically lived out there and have so much love for Europe, so we wanted to keep that connection.”
Luke noted that he rained in his drug-taking during his time in Berlin.
He said: “I wasn’t doing any drugs.
"It was more dive bars and a bottle of whiskey than Berghain.”
On how the German city - frequented by David Bowie and U2 - inspired him, he continued: “A lot of songwriters have found refuge in Berlin.
“It’s a free place, it’s not so consumed by commerciality. I was looking for something a bit rawer, a little bit more minimal. Sometimes you just pick up these nuances somewhere. It’s not necessarily the people, it’s the place.”
Luke co-wrote and produced much of the record with Tobias Kuhn there, but in March 2020, COVID-19 travel restrictions meant the pair had to work via Zoom, until Tobias could fly to London and join The Kooks - also comprising Hugh Harris and Alexis Nunez - to put the finishing touches to the LP.
Getting married and becoming a dad for the first time also gave Luke an "inner peace", which is reflected throughout the uptempo electronic-tinged collection.
Luke added: “I really hope that sense of inner peace comes across.
“I really want to have fun with my life at this point. But also – it’s kinda a reflection of what I was feeling in real-time in a pre-and-post COVID world. I was reading a lot of sci-fi – like Philip K. Dick, Azimov and surreal stuff like Boris Vian – which is obviously really distracting from what’s going on in the world, but helped me be imaginative with the songs.
“In the pandemic I had a good amount of time to look over our albums and feel proper proud and lucky. This album is a real thank you to our fans for sticking by us for so long, we hope you love it."