Midlake Tickets

After an extended absence, Midlake have announced their reunion with a UK tour and a brand new album, For The Sake Of Bethel Woods. Tickets go on sale Friday 29 October 2021 at 10:00.

Longevity and credibility are great, but every artist yearns for one song that has a life beyond its maker. A Hotel California, Like A Rolling Stone or Free Falling. It may be on a smaller scale, but play Midlake’s Roscoe to anyone and it immediately digs in, grows roots and flourishes. If the Texan band had called it a day then and there, they had already built their cabin in the woods, a lovingly crafted monument waiting to be rediscovered over and over.

The story, however, has a beginning and many chapters after. The beginning is 2000 in North Texas, where five students in the musically fertile town of Denton (also home to Centro-matic, Slobberbone, The Marked Men and Lift To Experience) formed a band. Their 2001 debut EP Milkmaid’s Grand Army sold out from the merch tables of their Texas shows, eventually working its way across the Atlantic and into the hands of Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde. Raymonde signed the quintet to his Bella Union label and Midlake’s debut album, Bamnam & Silvercork, arrived in 2004.

By the time the band turned their attention to a follow-up, they’d abandoned the lo-fi psychedelia of their debut and followed a new path that was built over the graves of rustic folk, ancient synths, mystic prog and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. This path led to their breakthrough: 2006’s The Trials Of Van Occupanther, a record that seemed to come with its own built-in mythology via tales of woodsmen, bandits and hazy romanticism. 

If Van Occupanther found Midlake in a sun-dappled clearing, their third album, The Courage Of Others, ventured much further into the woods, where the silence becomes almost ominous. They also provided backing for John Grant on his widely acclaimed solo record The Queen Of Denmark.

The band were midway through work on their fourth when frontman Tim Smith announced he was leaving the band. Guitarist Eric Pulido moved to lead vocals, Joey McClellan and Jesse Chandler joined and the band regrouped to start again. That new start turned into 2013’s Antiphon, a re-emergence into sunlight that shed most of Courage’s darkness.

A long absence followed while the band members started families and embarked on other musical projects. However, Midlake reunited in 2021 and revealed a new record For The Sake Of Bethel Woods, recorded with revered produced John Congelton. Frontman Pulido said that the reunion was initiated by Jesse Chandler’s late father appearing to him in a dream and insisting that he get the band back together.