Maxïmo Park unveil new single ‘Quiz Show Clue’. It’s the latest new music to be taken from the band’s forthcoming album Stream Of Life, which lands on September 27 via Lower Third.
The band have so far introduced the new album with the lean and direct lead single ‘Your Own Worst Enemy’, and the brisk power-pop of ‘The End Can Be As Good As The Start’. Having explored in those songs the cyclical nature of mistake-making and the strength it takes to hold onto faith in the future, ‘Quiz Show Clue’ looks at how we ascribe value to ourselves.
Lead singer Paul Smith had the following to say about the new single: “This song is a tongue-in-cheek take on being left behind or ignored by society, It mirrors my own working-class art-school background, but surely everybody feels like a nobody at some point?!”
Listen to ‘Quiz Show Clue’ via all platforms: HERE
The road to Stream Of Life saw the band link up once again with Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective), Grammy-winning producer of 2021’s UK #2 charting, pandemic-era tour de force Nature Always Wins, as well as producer Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, Julia Jacklin, Sports Team). As a result, it marks the first time they have all been together in a studio to make an album since 2016.
It finds the band in perhaps the most reflective state they’ve been in. Lead singer Paul Smith, this most lit-pop of lyric writers, took the album title from a short story by Ukrainian-born Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, inspired by both its stream of consciousness style and the way it prompts reflection on the inner mechanisms of people’s minds. It begs the question of why they do the things that they do, even when they can seem counterintuitive to the outsider. There’s an inner flow to every individual – a stream of life.
Both form and concept bleed satisfyingly into how Stream Of Life itself was created – recorded quickly, making fast decisions, not overly-editing oneself – and more specifically how ‘Your Own Worst Enemy’ becomes a study in deception. It considers the things we conceal from ourselves, and others, in order to maintain some inner equilibrium.
Commenting on the single, lead singer Paul Smith says: “’Your Own Worst Enemy’ has a different feel to anything we’ve done before – loose and lean, yet still rocking! It’s about that horrible feeling where you suddenly realise you’ve made a familiar error, and also the lies we tell each other on a daily basis to avoid confrontation or turmoil.”
Continuing about the album he says: “We’ve always tried to document the world around us at each stage of our lives while subtly nudging the music forward each time – this record continues that mission. It was great to be back in a studio after recording remotely last time. Working with Ben in Atlanta, and Burke in Byker, was as stimulating as it’s ever been, and I think we captured that energy. Thematically, the record covers passion, politics, and privilege amongst other topics.”
Watch the music video for ‘Quiz Show Clue’ below:
Album artwork and tracklist:
3. Dormant ‘Til Explosion (Feat. Vanessa Briscoe Hay)
4. The End Can Be As Good As The Start
5. Armchair View
7. Stream Of Life
8. Doppelgänger Eyes
9. I Knew You’d Say That
10. The Path I Chose
11. No Such Thing As A Society
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