Mew have released another teaser from the upcoming album. The song is Water Slides and you can listen to it on Pitchfork.
Now, seven weeks before the album’s global release date, this is only the second published studio recording out of ten tracks… Third, if you count Making Friends, for which you’ve heard an early version that was approximately 3/4 finished already a year and a half ago. A while back, it seems now. Well, The Night Believer was almost entirely played on a Norwegian radio station, but – as we know Mew – radio sound may not do proper justice for the band. The latter is the track where Kimbra is most audible, but you can’t miss her on Water Slides either. On Interview The Girls she is also singing a little bit of harmonies.
In other recent news… Mew have announced a Swedish festival gig as well, and now it looks like all the Summer shows for Nordic countries have been scheduled (excluding Iceland where Mew have not played a live show yet). Bråvalla Festival in the fair city of Norrköping will be held on June 25th through June 27th, but the exact “Mew Day” is still unknown. The band also paid a short promotional visit to Sweden a week ago. Jonas Bjerre, Johan Wohlert and Nick Watts performed five songs for Spotify Session, but at this point we don’t know when or where these songs will be released. The acoustic set consisted of Witness, The Night Believer, Satellites, Water Slides and Symmetry.
The Japanese release of + – will be released a few days earlier (on April 22nd), so with good luck a pre-ordered album might even reach you around the time of the global release date (April 27th) and this website seems to be English-friendly at least. As often with Japanese album releases, + – will also come with exclusive bonus material, possibly the tracks hinted previously by Japanese iTunes – Drinking Soda and Western Silver Lion Cub.
Finally, recently on Danish X-Factor a Mew song was played live and you may watch the video of Comforting Sounds here.
Sounds so good… Just cannot wait for the album lenght version which is over a minute longer.
I predict this one will be one will be one of my album favourites. The final chords that you can hear on the live recordings are so soothing.
I tried to but myself in a box and not listen the “radio edits” or “live versions” until the release of the album but it is not going to work, I think this one will be on-a-repeat-listen from now on.
I am a bit confused by the production choices. I much prefer the live recording, personally.
Yes, it’s hard not to listen to radio edits.
Exactly. In each album Mew has succeeded to create worlds, kind of distant places from mystical dreams or someting of that kind. Now, each story (=album) has its chapters that form a whole dreamlike tale. In each chapter (=song) every single detail is important because details form the whole atmosphere of an album.
Therefore I (almost fanatically) tried to resist to let my ears to become accustomed to these “half-versions”. I know it is silly, but hey it is Mew we are talking about.
As for the production choices I think it (like so many things in Mew) needs a little time and personally I love smoothness of it. Almost like August morning dew in divine Mew melancholy.
Love it. Such a smooth mix, really enjoying the variety of sounds on this record.
I too, would very much like to hear the full version. I fell madly in love with the live version of this song when they premiered it on the November tour.
Ann!!! Since your show videos was how I fell in love with Water Slides in the first place, I had to tell you. The spotify version is NOT the edit. It’s 5:04 and sounds COMPLETELY different than the preview. Mew’s soundcloud has the edit but Spotify managed to get PIAS to let them add the album version of the song.
I am dying to know what everyone thinks compared to the edit. Personally, now I am more in love than I already was which I thought impossible.
I’m so glad! I agree, the full/album version is extremely beautiful and much more like the live version. I really love Kimbra’s backing vocals.
Love it Love it Love it!
Me too, I seriously have had it on repeat for days..my last fm stats are probably “water slides 4384829483994 plays” I really love Kimbra’s voice with Jonas…I can already tell The Night Believers is going to be a favorite. Btw I loved your recording of Cross the River On Your Own, it’s so fun to watch Johan…he gets so into playing.
Got the full version from the Japan iTunes store — it unlocks automatically for people who preordered the album. Quite a nice track, I think.