'I Like To Dance', the new song from Sydney artist Alex The Astronaut, tells the story of an unnamed, hypothetical woman who experiences violence at the hands of her partner.  “You scream ‘Why don’t you leave!’ / My kids are two and three / I just can’t pay for what they need / We both know he’d find me,” Alex sings.

This song isn't Alex's story: she wrote the song after a social encounter with a magistrate, who told Alex that he saw a devastating amount of cases of domestic violence each week. Alex spoke to her friends and realised how many of them had experienced domestic violence themselves.

One in three Australian women has experienced physical violence; one woman a week is murdered by a current or former partner. With this story, Alex zooms in on the experience of the women behind those statistics and brings into view the women who should be known for their strength, kindness, talents, and dreams, not the violence that they've experienced.

A talented footballer Alex moved from Sydney to New York on a soccer scholarship in 2017 and studied Maths and Physics at Long Island University.  It was while she was in the US that she turned a streak of bold new life experiences into songs under the name Alex the Astronaut.Superficially her music is naive and off-the-cuff, on second listen it is honed and worldly, its quirks and melodic ticks revealing tough themes and darker sentiments. 

European Live Dates:

11th AUGUST - GLASGOW, Broadcast, UK

14th AUGUST - LONDON, Assembly Camden, UK

The Darkness have released their brand new single ‘Rock And Roll Deserves To Die’, accompanied by a brilliantly entertaining video. It’s the first taste of their new album Easter Is Cancelled, out on October 4 through Cooking Vinyl. From chiming, acoustic beginnings, ‘Rock And Roll Deserves To Die’ explodes into an epic five-minute masterpiece. It features some of Justin Hawkins’ finest lyrics to date alongside monumental riffs, thunderous bass and almighty drums, while also featuring some beautifully delicate touches from the band.

It finds The Darkness hailing the death of the old and opening a door into a brave new world never seen from the band before. As bass player Frankie Poullain comments, “A lot of bands have relinquished their duty. Rock and roll is so uniform now. Everybody dresses the same, looks the same, sounds the same. It’s pathetic. It deserves to die. Let’s kill the cliché. Let’s break the crucifix. That’s partly what the album is about.”

In fact, ‘Rock And Roll Deserves To Die’ marks a sensational new era, opening Easter Is Cancelled, the first ever concept album from The Darkness. Justin explains, “At the end of days, humankind must consider the essential truths of existence. The Darkness, your vanguard in life’s journey, have stared into the abyss. The observations we bring from the edge are set out in a new record album, titled ‘Easter is Cancelled’. This far-reaching communiqué examines man’s brutality to man, the dichotomies that we live within and the alternate realities that exist alongside our blinkered comprehension of the Universe. The song cycle defines human existence through a parable – the slow lingering death and eventual glorious re-birth of rock and roll.”

THE DARKNESS ‘EASTER IS CANCELLED’ 2019 TOUR

NOVEMBER

26th – Belfast, Limelight

27th – Dublin, Academy

29th – Nottingham, Rock City

DECEMBER

1st – Birmingham, O2 Academy

2nd – Leicester, O2 Academy

3rd – Southend, Cliffs Pavilion

5th – Norwich, UEA

6th – Cambridge, Corn Exchange

7th – Bath, Pavilions

9th – Portsmouth, Pyramids

10th – Brighton, Dome

11th – Watford, Colosseum

13th – Manchester Academy

14th – Newcastle, O2 Academy

15th – Glasgow, O2 Academy

17th – York, Barbican

18th – Liverpool, O2 Academy

20th – London, Roundhouse