Edmonton singer, songwriter and poet Benjamin Clementine has today unveiled his first new music since being awarded 2015’s Mercury Music Prize for his debut album At Least For Now. Entitled ‘Phantom Of Aleppoville’ the track was written, recorded and produced by Clementine and follows his recent collaboration with Gorillaz on ‘Hallelujah Money’. Clementine has also announced a series of UK & European headline dates for November and December 2017, including London’s Brixton Academy on December 5th. A New York show at Carnegie Hall has already been announced for October 5.

Accompanied by a video shot by photographer Craig McDean and filmmaker Masha Vasyukova, Clementine composed ‘Phantom Of Aleppoville’ after being affected by the writing of pioneering British psychoanalyst Donald Winicott. He wrote extensively about children who have experienced bullying in the home and at school, discovering that while the trauma was naturally not comparable in scale to that suffered by children displaced by war, its effects followed similar patterns. Seeing in Winicott’s writing a mirror of his own childhood experiences, Clementine chose the title – the “little city of Aleppo” – to symbolise a place where children encounter such bullying.  Says Clementine, “Aleppoville is a place where many are bullied if not all, but no one understands nor see why; Phantom.”

Benjamin Clementine released his debut album At Least For Now in January 2015. The album secured Clementine the UK Mercury Prize and in France the ‘Best New Act’ honours at Les Victories de la Musique, whilst in the U.S Clementine featured on the cover of the New York Times, interviewed by David Byrne. Clementine is especially beloved for his emotionally charged live performances. The Guardian, in a five star live-review, describing the artist as “a true original… his intense songs, autobiographical and elliptical as they are, could not conceivably be anyone else.”

UK Dates:

30th Nov Dome Concert Hall Brighton, UK

1st Dec Birmingham Town Hall Birmingham, UK

3rd Dec O2 Academy Leeds, UK

4th Dec The Ritz Manchester, UK

5th Dec Brixton Academy London, UK

6th Dec The Sage Gateshead Gateshead, UK

8th Dec Colston Hall One Bristol, UK

Erasure have unveiled the Vince Clarke remix of ‘Love You To The Sky’ from their new EP, and announced an extensive tour for early 2018. The band will embark on a headline UK tour with European dates starting in Dublin on 31 January. February will see Erasure travel throughout the UK, finishing up with a return to London’s Hammersmith Eventim Apollo, before heading to Germany.

The original version of ‘Love You To The Sky’ is taken from World Be Gone, the band’s latest studio album, which went into the UK Official Albums Chart at No. 6, their highest new entry in the album chart since 1994’s I Say I Say I Say. The enduring BRIT and Ivor Novello winning pop duo have released a staggering number of albums, including 5 UK Number 1’s and 17 top 10 singles (35 singles charted in the UK Top 40) both the new album and the recent best of, Always, saw Erasure entering the Top 10 album charts once again.

World Be Gone sees the award-winning songwriters in a reflective mood, giving the world and recent political upheavals a thoughtful examination and, as highlighted on the painted artwork showing a ship's masthead rising up from being submerged in the stormy waters, looking forward to the future.

Erasure Headline Tour – 2018

31 Jan - Dublin Olympia

2 Feb - Dundee Caird Hall

3 Feb - Edinburgh Usher Hall

4 Feb - Newcastle City Hall

6 Feb - Liverpool Philharmonic

7 Feb - Hull City Hall

8 Feb - Manchester O2 Apollo

10 Feb - Cambridge Corn Exchange

11 Feb - Birmingham O2 Academy

12 Feb - Nottingham Royal Concert Hall

14 Feb - Ipswich Regent

15 Feb - Southampton O2 Guildhall

16 Feb - Cardiff St David’s Hall

18 Feb - Aylesbury Friars Waterside Theatre

19 Feb - Brighton Dome

20 Feb - Guildford G Live

22 Feb - Norwich UEA

23 Feb - London Eventim Apollo

Tickets are onsale from Friday June 2