Phoenix will release a new album entitled, Alpha Zulu, on November 4 through Loyaute/Glassnote. The French band, whose last album was released in 2017, shared the single, “Tonight,” which features Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig.
Phoenix, whose lineup consists of vocalist Thomas Mars, guitarist Christian Mazzalai, guitarist/keyboardist Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz and bassist Deck d’Arcy, had never before recorded a track with a guest singer. The band self-produced Alpha Zulu, following the 2019 death of longtime collaborator, producer Philippe Zdar. The band recorded the album at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs inside the Palais du Louvre.
“We felt it would be a fantastic adventure to create something out of nothing in a museum,” Branco stated. “And so with the pandemic, we could live exactly this scene, to be alone in an empty museum.”
Press materials further described the experience:
During lockdown they had to enter through a distant doorway, taking a 10-minute walk through dark, empty rooms teeming with aesthetic history. The flashlights from their phone picked out draped statues, Memphis Group sparkle and, just before the turning to their studio, Napoleon’s “grand, goofy” gold throne …
Working at the Musée brought Phoenix full circle, in a way. As kids growing up in Versailles, they had rebelled against the oppressive French classicism they grew up around – the idea that culture belonged in a museum. And yet, here were four of France’s most important cultural ambassadors, making their next work in such a space. It worked perfectly: away from the exhibits at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, their studio became a holding space for a jumble of works: Dalí next to Medieval pieces and Lalanne sculptures.
“I was a bit afraid, when there was too much beauty around us, that to create something could be a bit hard,” Mazzalai stated. “But it was the opposite: we couldn’t stop producing music. In these first 10 days, we wrote almost all of the album.”
“The backstage of the museum is like a mashup,” d’Arcy said. “It’s very pop in a way – like how we make music.”
Watch the video for Phoenix’s new single, “Tonight,” featuring Ezra Koenig below:
Alpha Zulu Tracklist
- Alpha Zulu
- Tonight feat. Ezra Koenig
- The Only One
- After Midnight
- Winter Solstice
- Season 2
- Artefact
- All Eyes On Me
- My Elixir
- Identical
