Midnight Oil are getting things done this year. They’ve announced that we’ll be receiving two albums from the politically-charged rock band.
And don’t worry, they’re still the same Midnight Oil. The new releases will deal with themes of reconciliation and climate chaos.
The announcement came in a huge Facebook statement that basically outlines the band’s 12 month plan. The first release will be a mini album, which was recorded with First Nations artists.
In the Facebook post, the band said, “We had over 20 songs we wanted to record and eight of them shared a strong focus on the issue of indigenous reconciliation, so we invited some of our First Nations friends to collaborate with us in various ways on each of these eight tracks.
“Our collective work will be released as a mini-album called The Makarrata Project in June/July. Band profits from this release will be donated to charities which elevate The Uluru Statement From The Heart (ulurustatement.org/the-statement).
“This mid-year release of The Makarrata Project will be accompanied by a small handful of themed live performances in Australia featuring some of the very special guests who helped create this mini-album.”
We’ll then be receiving a Midnight Oil album towards the end of the year. The band says it’s at the final mixing stage, “This completely separate batch of material deals with various lyrical themes including climate chaos, no surprise after the mega fires we’ve just experienced in Australia.”
They’ll be releasing singles from both projects over the coming months, with plans to announce a national tour soon.
Check out the statement in full below.
Midnight Oil’s last studio album was 2002’s Capricornia.
