IST IST launch into 2023 with the exhilarating new single: “Something Has To Give”.
A song that’s all about making fresh starts, taking risks, and writing new chapters; this timely release opens the new year with a tantalizing glimpse into the Manchester band’s next studio album, ‘Protagonists’, which arrives on 31 March (via Kind Violence Records).
Pulling a handbrake turn on the serene electronica of previous single “Mary In The Black And White Room”, Ist Ist’s follow-up act kicks things up another gear altogether. Driven by piston-like percussives and veering guitar lines that accelerate headlong into oblivion, “Something Has To Give” is a shot of pure adrenaline that rushes and dissipates all too soon.
Offering a cryptic synopsis of the new single, frontman Adam Houghton says:
“”Something Has To Give” is all about new beginnings. It’s a sort of stick or twist situation. Do you settle or go for it?”
The new single swiftly follows the insurgent comeback track “Stamp You Out” and “Mary in The Black and White Room”, all of which point the way to their upcoming new LP ‘Protagonists’, out this Spring.
“Something Has To Give” echoes one of the central themes at play in the album. A record that dwells on the prospect of new beginnings, it’s also one that touches on the trials and tribulations of love, tricky family relationships, and the feeling of being trapped by the past. Owing its title to songwriter Adam Houghton’s magpie-like method of writing, the album places prominent characters, fictional and non-fictional, into dystopian worlds with new and uncertain outcomes. Opening up about the album Hougton explains:
“My process has always been taking inspiration from everything around me including but not limited to TV, Books, Movies, Newspaper, Articles on Wikipedia, Crime Documentaries etc. I then use these sources to craft fictitious stories around an imagined persona. The title ‘Protagonists” seemed to work with this method.”
Blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, while traversing a broader spectrum of genres and sounds than ever before, ‘Protagonists’ will provide plenty to pore-over for fans new and old. Recorded and mixed by Michael Whalley and IST IST at Milkshed Studios, the album was mastered by the legendary Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound (The National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol).
-Official bio
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