Idlewild have announced a new self-titled album set for release on October 3 and shared its lead single ‘Stay Out Of Place’.
The Edinburgh band’s first new material since their 2019 album ‘Interview Music’, ‘Stay Out Of Place’ is an anthemic number in line with the melodic alt-rock of their recent output, and it was premiered by Steve Lamacq on his BBC 6 Music show this evening.
Frontman Roddy Woomble said of the track: “Walt Whitman was right, we do contain ‘multitudes’ – there is more than one ‘us’ in there – we’re choosing a voice from among the many voices.
“This is especially interesting in a band context, because it’s not just one voice, but five voices collaborating, over time. We arrange the world in our own order, but sometimes you’ve got to shake up expectations and forget about the instructions – I suppose that’s what I’m getting at with ‘Stay Out Of Place’. It felt like a good starting point and (re)introduction to Idlewild 2025…”
‘Idlewild’ is the band’s tenth album, and they wrote it last year at Post Electric Studios in Edinburgh and the Isle of Iona Library in the Hebrides, bringing in elements of their previous work, from their earlier indie punk to the folk-rock of 2005’s ‘Warnings/Promises’.
Woomble added: “We’re looking back without being nostalgic — we were thinking about all the songs we’d made and the new songs we were making,” he observes. “For the first time we were referencing ourselves, not in a nostalgic way, in a positive, creative way, realising that we had a ‘sound’ and the songs we were writing should celebrate that. After it was all recorded and done, it felt fitting to simply title it ‘Idlewild’.”
‘Idlewild’ will be released on CD, standard black LP, and two different limited colour vinyl editions. You can pre-order the album here.
The band have got a range of tour dates across the next few months, too. Most notably, there’s an already-announced run of shows in October just after their self-titled album comes out – buy tickets here.
Idlewild’s UK tour dates are:
July
27 – Deer Shed Festival, Thirsk
September
13 – Black Isle Calling, Inverness
October
10 – Boiler Shop, Newcastle
11 – Project House, Leeds
12 – University of Wolverhampton at The Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
14 – Junction, Cambridge
15 – O2 Academy, Bristol
17 – KOKO, London
18 – New Century Hall, Manchester
December
5 – Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen
6 – LiveHouse, Dundee
7 – Barrowland, Glasgow
January (2026)
2nd – 5th – Rockaway Beach, Bognor Regis
In the years between ‘Interview Music’ and ‘Idlewild’, Woomble has been busy with this solo career, putting out the albums ‘Lo! Soul’ and ‘Sometime During The Night We Fell Off The Map’, and he launched a new project under the name ‘Almost Nothing’ in 2023, too.
Ahead of the release of ‘Interview Music’ in 2019, Woomble said: “What’s really important about Idlewild is that we are basically punk rock kids. No one ever taught us how to play anything. We formed a band and we learned. In our own way. We were inspired by the bands we saw just getting up on stage, making a noise and exchanging ideas, and trying to change your ideas.”
NME gave the album four stars, saying: “Free from commercial constraints, Idlewild are reinvigorated. ‘Interview Music’ is their best work in 17 years. They seem driven by the joy of making music great again. It won’t change the world, but this record is a wonderful world all of their own.”
