Out Today: Milky Chance’s Vivid, Genre-Obliterating Alt-Pop Hallucinations Shine On Living In A Haze | Shore Fire Media

9 June, 2023Print

Out Today: Milky Chance’s Vivid, Genre-Obliterating Alt-Pop Hallucinations Shine On Living In A Haze

Out Today: Milky Chance’s Vivid, Genre-Obliterating Alt-Pop Hallucinations Shine On Living In A Haze

New Album Featuring Fatoumata Diawara + Charlotte Cardin, Watch The Living In A Haze Album Visualizer Here

Currently on Massive, 60+ Date North American Tour

 

“An Ocean of Alt-Pop Splendor & Soft Indie Honey” (Indie Shuffle)

 

Today, Milky Chance share Living In A Haze, a new album that finds the billions-streaming German duo of Clemens Rehbein and Phillipp Dausch obliterating any notion of genre. On their independent debut, Milky Chance thrive on writing the tightest, most groove-forward alt-pop songs imaginable — and then going back and distorting each sound into its wildest iteration. Featuring guest appearances from Malian artist Fatoumata Diawara (on the humid Afrobeat-meets-reggae track “Flicker In The Dark”) and Canadian singer Charlotte Cardin (the baroque garage shuffle “History Of Yesterday”), it’s Milky Chance at their best: Sophisticated and adventurous compositions imbued with introspective themes and executed with an exuberant, childlike creativity that feels truly unleashed. 

Says the band: “We stepped out of our comfort zone to make this album. It was freeing and felt like a new chapter for us. We gave ourselves the space and energy to really dive deep into writing and producing, tried out new things, worked with incredible collaborators like Charlotte Cardin and Fatoumata Diawara, and created, what we think, is a colorful and diverse album.” 

It’s yet another intriguing progression in Milky Chance's journey, transitioning from a teenage recording project to a prominent alternative-pop act that dominates the festival scene. From a disparate assembly of influences — The Police, Sublime, Burna Boy, Rosalia, Stromae, Fred again… — Living In A Haze applies the band’s endless musical curiosity to the propulsive logic of the best club music while delivering masterful songcraft. 

Watch the Living In A Haze album visualizer here. 

Throughout Living In A Haze, Milky Chance effortlessly blends elements of New Wave, 80s synth-pop, and reggae with contemporary club sounds, afrobeat, and deep house, resulting in an unrelenting and thoroughly irresistible summer sound. Its sonic breadth is remarkable: “Golden” is a dusky and wistful production that was hailed as “effortlessly cool alt-pop” (Acid Stag) and “a honey-glazed ray of sun” (Indie Shuffle), while the delicately unfolding album closer “Frequency of Love” shows a softer side to Milky Chance, singing with raw emotion as they weave in and out of alluring sub-bass textures and vocoder choirs. 

Lead single “Living In A Haze” — a tight, post-Strokes haymaker — is fast rising up the Alternative radio charts, and has helped propel the band into Spotify’s Top 500 Highest-Streaming Artists. It joins “Colorado” and “Synchronize” as the third radio and streaming smash from the album.

Watch the video for “Living In A Haze” here. 

Their latest release, “Purple Tiger” is an irresistibly off-kilter track that ticks along with a nervous momentum before erupting into a call-and-response chorus. It’s like a New Order song looking in a funhouse mirror, its austere rhythms colored with careening synth figures and Rehbein’s defiant falsetto.

Listen to “Purple Tiger” here.

The achievements of Milky Chance are truly remarkable. Their breakthrough hit “Stolen Dance” just entered the exclusive 1 billion stream club on Spotify and they’ve played CoachellaLollapalooza, and top venues worldwide. They’ve had some legit US radio hits, including 5 Top 20 Alternative Hits (including a #1 for “Stolen Dance), 4 Triple A Top 10s (including #1’s for “Stolen Dance” and 2020’s “Don’t Let Me Down” and #2 for 2022’s “Colorado”). 

This summer, the duo is on their biggest-ever North American tour, weaving their way across 48 different US and Canadian cities with Young The Giant and 66 cities in total. Earlier this week, they performed two straight sold-out nights at New York City's Pier 17, and August’s show at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater is already sold out. Learn more about the tour here and see below for the full routing.

 

Living In A Haze Tracklist

Living In A Haze

Golden

Purple Tiger

Colorado

Favorite Song

Synchronize

Better Off

Flicker In The Dark

Like A Clown

Feeling For You

History Of Yesterday

Frequency Of Love

 

North America 2023 Tour Dates

5/28 Quebec City, QC

5/29 Ottawa, ON

5/30 Montreal, QC *

5/31 Toronto, ON *

6/2 Asbury Park, NJ *

6/3 New York City, NY *

6/4 New York City, NY *

6/6 Portland, ME

6/7 Bridgeport, CT *

6/9 Boston, MA *

6/10 Columbia, MD *

6/11 Philadelphia, PA *

6/12 Harrisburg, PA

6/13 Lewiston, NY *

6/15 Grand Rapids, MI

6/16 Detroit, MI *

6/17 Columbus, OH *

6/18 Pittsburgh, PA *

6/20 Cincinnati, OH *

6/21 Cleveland, OH *

6/23 Chicago, IL *

6/24 St. Louis, MO *

6/25 Indianapolis, IN *

6/26 Madison, WI

6/27 Minneapolis, MN *

6/28 Des Moines, IA

6/30 Oklahoma City, OK *

7/1 Kansas City, MO *

7/13 Atlanta, GA *

7/14 Nashville, TN *

7/15 Charlotte, NC *

7/16 Raleigh, NC *

7/18 Richmond, VA *

7/19 Charleston, SC

7/20 St. Augustine, FL *

7/21 Tampa, FL *

7/22 Miami, FL *

7/25 Birmingham, AL *

7/26 New Orleans, LA

7/27 Houston, TX *

7/28 Austin, TX *

7/29 Irving, TX *

7/31 El Paso, TX

8/1 Albuquerque, NM *

8/3 Salt Lake City, UT *

8/4 Flagstaff, AZ *

8/5 Phoenix, AZ *

8/7 Bozeman, MT

8/8 Spokane, WA *

8/10 Vancouver, BC *

8/11 Seattle, WA *

8/12 Troutdale, OR *

8/14 Boise, ID *

8/15 Bend, OR *

8/16 Reno, NV

8/17 San Francisco, CA *

8/18 Santa Barbara, CA *

8/19 Irvine, CA *

8/20 San Diego, CA *

8/24 Calgary, AB

8/25 Edmonton, AB

8/26 Saskatoon, SK

8/28 Billings, MT

8/30 Morrison, CO *

8/31 Dillon, CO *

9/1 Aspen CO

*With Young The Giant

 

FOLLOW MILKY CHANCE

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ABOUT FATOUMATA DIAWARA

Hailed as one of the most vital standard-bearers of modern African music, Fatoumata Diawara takes her artistry to fresh and thrilling heights on her new album FENFO. Boldly experimental yet respectful of her roots, it’s a record that defines her as the voice of young African womanhood – proud of her heritage but with a vision that looks confidently to the future and a message that is universal.

Her spectacular 2011 debut album Fatou made the Malian singer and guitarist the most talked about new African artist on the planet. FENFO (which translates as “something to say”’) dramatically fulfills that promise on a set of vivid and original new compositions that draw on the rich experiences she has enjoyed since.

Diawara has worked with some of the biggest names in contemporary music, including Paul McCartney, Bobby Womack, Herbie Hancock, Damon Albarn, and Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca. She has performed at Glastonbury and other major festivals, and she assembled a West African super-group featuring Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré and Toumani Diabaté to record a song calling for peace in her troubled homeland.

She has also continued her parallel career as an actor, including an acclaimed appearance in 2014’s Timbuktu (Le chagrin des oiseaux), which received both BAFTA and Academy Award nominations.

More recently she shared the stage at New York’s legendary Carnegie Hall with the likes of David Crosby and Snarky Puppy in an evening of topical protest songs – and, according to many, stole the show with “two of the night’s most striking moments,” according to Rolling Stone. She has also worked courageously as a social activist, campaigning against the trafficking and sale of black migrants in Libyan slave markets.

 

ABOUT CHARLOTTE CARDIN

Amassing over 272 million combined global streams and attracting acclaim from Harper`s BAZAAR, The FADER, Flaunt, NYLON, PAPER, W Magazine, Interview, Pigeons & Planes, and more, she takes flight out of flames on her 2021 full-length debut, Phoenix. Cardin`s first record held steady at #1 on the Billboard Canadian Albums Chart for multiple weeks and made the artist the most nominated artist at the 2022 JUNO Awards, collecting six nominations total. 

In addition to being long listed for the 2021 Polaris Prize, Phoenix won Anglophone Album of the Year at ADISQ 2021 and was certified Platinum in Canada within a year from its release. Back in 2017, Cardin`s first two breakthrough EPs, Big Boy and Main Girl had sparked a whirlwind two-year journey around the globe - opening for Nick Murphy and BØRNS, selling out headline shows on multiple continents and gracing the stage of Bonnaroo, and Festival d`Été de Québec, as a special guest of Sting and Peter Gabriel. In the fall of 2021, Cardin headlined the return of Osheaga in her hometown of Montreal. The artist then went on to sell-out her first headlining Canadian tour, selling over 47k tickets coast to coast, plus selling out nights at The Roxy in Los Angeles and New York`s Music Hall of Williamsburg.