Today marks the release of THE THE’s first studio album in a quarter century Ensoulment through earMUSIC.
Today marks the release of Ensoulment, THE THE’s first studio album in a quarter century. Co-produced by Matt Johnson and Warne Livesey, the album encompasses characteristic topics ranging from love & sex, war & politics, life & death – to the meaning of what it is to be human in the 21st century. It contains echoes of THE THE’s multifaceted musical past, however it is richly representative of the mercurial band’s here and now. Johnson is characteristically unafraid to tackle the emotional complexity inherent in the human condition – intimacy in an age of alienation; democracy in a post-truth age; empire and vassalage; and the inexorable rise of AI – yet the album is equally shot through with hope.
Listen to Ensoulment HERE
THE THE also recently announced another world tour, commencing September 2024, the band’s first since their hugely successful The Comeback Special world tour in 2018. Even before the announcement of Ensoulment, the Ensouled world tour has been selling out fast.
Not only fans but also media outlets have highly anticipated and praised the album prior to today’s release:
“Ensoulment has dark elegiac beauty. His best album in 30 years”
Mojo
“A beautiful and gentle record”
The Independent
“The other bard of Stratford…a striking return”
Vive Le Rock
About THE THE:
THE THE was formed by Matt Johnson in 1979 and the music inhabits a genre of its own: music of long shadows, high hopes, channelled anger, feverish passions and sweetly disturbing poignancy. It is pop and rock, blues and folk, soul and polemic. It spans alienated electronics to twisted cinematic soundtracks, guitar tumbling swing to crimson ballads, rants and prayers to diaries and hymns. In over four decades, THE THE have released just five studio albums of original songs – Soul Mining (1983), Infected (1986), Mind Bomb (1989), Dusk (1993) and NakedSelf (2000). But always unpredictable, during this time THE THE have also made diversions into cover albums, such as Hanky Panky; film soundtracks including Hyena, Tony, Muscle and Moonbug; art installations; a podcast series, Radio Cinéola; a beautiful and moving 84-minute documentary, The Inertia Variations; and various book publications, including biography Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & THE THE.