Bombay Bicycle Club say the surprise feature on their upcoming album will “shock a lot of people”
My Big Day, the upcoming album from Bombay Bicycle Club, is their most collaborative work yet with features from Damon Albarn, Nilüfer Yanya, Jay Som and Holly Humberstone. The record will also include a fifth collaboration with a mystery surprise guest.
Speaking on the collaborative nature of the album, vocalist Jack Steadman told NME, that the collaborative approach may be linked to his solo endeavours as Mr Jukes: “I did collaborate on almost every song. It was really fun to not be limited by your own voice or your own style and just have complete freedom. It’s certainly very eclectic… from Holly Humberstone to Damon Albarn, it’s a nice mix of people and obviously the surprise is gonna blow a lot of people’s minds.”
Explaining why they decided to keep the final feature a secret, he stated, “It’s gonna shock a lot of people, so why not make it into something.” Guitarist Jamie MacColl added, “I think we wanted to reveal it visually for the first time as well, rather than on a track listing.”
Bombay Bicycle Club recently unveiled their collaboration with Humberstone, ‘Diving’. In the same interview, Steadman said of the track, “She asked me to come and sing on a song at one of her shows, which I was surprised by but really honoured to do that. It was probably a song that was 80% done and there was something missing from it. It was just a great examples of someone coming in and it suddenly all making sense.”
The Albarn collaboration, on the other hand, came about “with a lot of difficulty”, according to MacColl. Steadman initially played the album to the Blur frontman in order to get his opinion, but ather than providing feedback, Albarn “just started singing this melody. It was kind of a curse as well as a blessing. It’s so good but am I ever going to persuade him to actually finish it and write the lyrics?”
According to MacColl, Albarn finished it in “a long journey between Coachella and somewhere else.” THe guitarist continued: Also, he doesn’t own a mobile phone, so it’s not like you can just WhatsApp him and be like, ‘how are the lyrics going?'”
Bombay Bicycle Club’s sixth record, My Big Day, is set for release on Friday, October 20th. Listen to ‘Diving’ featuring Holly Humberstone below.
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