Icona Pop announce first album in 10 years, ‘Club Romantech’
Icona Pop have announced their first album in 10 years, ‘Club Romantech’ – pre-save it here.
The Swedish pop duo will release the new album on September 1 via Ultra Records, which follows their 2013 debut LP ‘This Is… Icona Pop’.
Joel Corry, Sofi Tukker, Yaeger, Ultra Nate and Galantis are among collaborators on the new tracks, while a new single called ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ is out now.
“’Where Do We Go From Here’ was one of the first songs we wrote in the fall of 2020 after realizing we couldn’t move back to LA because of the pandemic,” Aino Jawo and Caroline Hjelt shared in a press statement.
“Back in Stockholm, we formed a small crew to start making music and thought ‘what the fuck are we going to do now?’ Eclectic, fun, hard, pop, deep, mainstream, catchy, weird, late at night, early in the morning – always with a tear in the corner of the eye and a smile on our face. That’s how ‘Where Do We Go From Here’ feels and that’s how CLUB ROMANTECH feels too.”
Check out the new song, along with the album artwork and tracklisting below.
“As Icona Pop, we can release a pop tune or a super hard dance song, and that’s who we are,” Hjelt shared of the new record. “When we started to write this album, we didn’t have any rules. We just had a vision we wanted to share with our fans. We’re inviting them into our world.”
“We put all of our problems and stress into what we’re doing,” Aino added. “We love disguising our heartbreaks and sadness in uplifting songs you can dance to. It was a very emotional process, and it’s all in the music.”
Elaborating on how they immersed themselves back into the music making process upon returning to Stockholm during the pandemic, Jawo shared: “We got back to what we love.
“It was the quietest period we’ve experienced in ten-plus years, so it’s crazy we made such danceable music. We felt the need to do something more up-tempo.”
Hjelt added that during long conversations, they were “dreaming of what we wanted the album to sound like”.
“We finally had the time to explore, have fun, and try different things. It feels like we’re going back to our core, but from where we are today. Initially, we were devastated to leave L.A. and the whole system we had built there. Suddenly, we were in Sweden, and we felt alone. In retrospect, I’m very happy we were there, but there was a lot of crying at first. What kept us going during the Pandemic was going into the studio.”
‘Club Romantech’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Fall In Love’
2. ‘Desire (with Joel Corry)’
3. ‘Shit We Do For Love (with Yaeger)’
4. ‘Stick Your Tongue Out’
5. ‘Make Your Mind Up Babe’
6. ‘Stockholm At Night’
7. ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’
8. ‘I Want You (with Galantis)’
9. ‘Loving You Ain’t Easy’
10. ‘Need You’
11. ‘Off Of My Mind (with VIZE)’
12. ‘Faster’
13. ‘You’re Free (with Ultra Naté)’
14. ‘Feels In My Body’
15. ‘Spa (with SOFI TUKKER)’
Earlier this year, Icona Pop teamed up with Galantis for their single ‘I Want You’, which came off the back of the 10th anniversary of Charli XCX collaboration ‘I Love It’.
The post Icona Pop announce first album in 10 years, ‘Club Romantech’ appeared first on NME.
Hollie Geraghty
NME
