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Oct 16, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Arlo Parks

British four-piece Glass Animals released a new album, Dreamland, back in August via Republic. Now they have shared a new version of the album’s “Tangerine” that features guest vocals from rising British musician Arlo Parks. The new version was debuted live yesterday during a Glass Animals livestream concert, which featured Parks, and now the studio version is available. Listen below.

Parks recently released a new single, “Hurt,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. “Hurt” followed her cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” and her singles “Black Dog” and “Eugene” (the latter landed on a Michelle Obama playlist). In 2019 Parks released a pair of EPs: Sophie and Super Sad Generation. Parks also recently teamed up with Phoebe Bridgers to cover the Radiohead classic “Fake Plastic Trees” (from The Bends), performing it in a church, with Parks on piano, for BBC Radio 1’s Chillest Show with Phil Taggart.

Dreamland is the follow-up to 2016’s How to Be a Human Being. It’s the band’s first album since drummer Joe Seaward was hit by a truck while cycling in Dublin in 2018, forcing them to cancel their remaining tour dates that year. The band also features guitarist/keyboardist Drew MacFarlane and bassist/keyboardist Ed Irwin-Singer.

Bayley had this to say about the album in a previous press release: “The idea for this album came at a time of confusion and uncertainty. My best friend was in the hospital. I didn’t know if he’d make it. The future was damn scary and completely unknown. During those weeks in the hospital, it was so difficult to look forwards that I found myself looking backwards. Digging around in my mind, pulling up old memories, finding comfort in them even if they were uncomfortable in themselves. Speaking to friends and family, I’ve realized that a lot of people are experiencing a similar sort of confusion now. Everything that we thought we could see clearly in front of us has been thrown into the air, and all the while, we can’t be out finding our footing. We can’t be out creating new memories, so…we’re diving back head-first into the old ones. I hear that in conversations. I see it in what people are watching on TV. In what we’re listening to. In what we’re eating. In dreams.”

Speaking about the themes on the album, Bayley had this to say: “This album goes through many of the most confusing moments in my life. It’s about growing up, from my first memories as a little kid to now. Quite often those moments are funny, sometimes awkward, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes it’s about love or hate or sexuality. It’s about realizing it’s ok to not have answers and it’s ok to not know how you feel about things and that it’s ok to be and look vulnerable. In fact, all of that is quite exciting. So often life asks us for binary yes or no answers. It asks us to conform and to fit in. But the world is so much more interesting and colorful than that…it’s a much more fluid and uncertain place.”

With Seaward recovered, Glass Animals returned to touring earlier this year, but obviously the rest of their touring plans for 2020 are up in the air due to COVID-19. Bayley commented in the previous press release: “I spent weeks devastated that our big plans to bring this album to you in real life on a stage were shattered…but, somehow, in all the uncertainty and before all the unknowns…right now seems like the most insane, but also the most apt time to reveal this record. Growing up is a strange time, the hospital was a strange time and here we are in a strange time again.”

Previously the band shared the album’s first single, title track “Dreamland,” via a video made by Bayley while under quarantine via instructions from director Colin Read. “Dreamland” was one of our Songs of the Week. The album also includes “Your Love (Déjà vu),” a new song the band shared in February that was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared another song from it, “Heat Waves,” via a video partially filmed on phones by neighbors of frontman Dave Bayley during the pandemic lockdown. “Heat Waves” also made our Songs of the Week list. Then they shared another new song from it, “It’s All So Incredibly Loud,” via a video (the song also placed on our Songs of the Week list).

Read our review of How to Be a Human Being here.

Read our 2016 interview with Glass Animals here.

Read our 2016 Artist Survey interview with Glass Animals here.

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