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AQUILO’s
new album
‘A SAFE PLACE TO BE’
is out now

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With over 490 million career streams to date, Aquilo achieved huge success with their first two albums, ‘Silhouettes’ and ‘ii’, they hit Glastonbury, played with Oh Wonder, and picked up positive comparisons to The xx and London Grammar. But they’ve been audibly reborn on recent releases such as ‘Out In LA’, ‘Our Bones Turn To Stone’ and ‘I Wanna See You Smile’ – a resurrection that will be fully realised with the release of their new album ‘A Safe Place To Be’ out today. The duo also recently announced a headline tour of the UK and Europe in February 2022 – their first in almost four years.

‘A Safe Place To Be’ is a soaring, ambitious and achingly beautiful piece of work that’s rich in scope, deftness and emotional depth. Nowhere is that more striking than in ‘Our Bones Turn To Stone’, a heart-quivering song that yearns for home over shimmering piano and strings. It was written two years ago, when the duo – Ben Fletcher and Tom Higham – returned home to Silverdale from Los Angeles and discovered that embracing their roots was all the inspiration that they needed. And so just before Christmas, in the studio in Ben’s parent’s basement that they first made music in, Aquilo crafted one of their favourite ever songs. 

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That heart-settling glow of coming home shines throughout the album. There’s the familiar delicate melancholy of Aquilo’s past work, but songs like the Coldplay-meets-Bon Iver rush of ‘Talking To Yourself’ or that lush R&B vibe on ‘Our Days Are Numbered’ bounce and crash to create an entirely new sound. Just like the elaborate model village of Silverdale that adorns its cover, the album is full of details to get lost in. From the echoed memories of ‘Costume Change’ to the dreamy ‘Silver Spoon’, from the ripping regret of ‘Stupid Not To Try’ to the uplifting soul of ‘I Wanna See You Smile’, the album feels like a world that you never want to leave.

Aquilo explain, “To have ‘A Safe Place To Be’ finished and ready to release feels strange but in a good way. We’ve been working on this album on and off for 2 years and have been through so much in that time.  Creatively we just needed to step away from making music after being sent to LA to write a ‘hit’. Cut to a year later, A Safe Place To Be was born.

We showed the music to a friend and creative director we’d worked with in the past (Charlie Drinkwater). We started working together on building a detailed model village based on our memories old and new. It’s set in the village we both grew up in and each song holds a place in that model village for the two of us. 

That is our Safe Place To Be, our memories, our home town and songs all in one place.  It really does feel like a new phase for the two of us. The start of something new. We’re just eager to get it out in the world.”

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The most recent single, ‘I Wanna See You Smile’ has just received a phenomenal 7000% surge in streams on Apple Music. It was prompted by Aquilo’s song ‘Just Asking’ being featured in the hit Apple TV+ show ‘Truth Be Told’. The track was Shazamed almost 5000 times, prompting a fresh wave of discovery for their music.  Further uplift was also seen after their track ‘Silhouette’ was synced on Love Island this summer.

The artwork for the ‘A Safe Place To Be’ campaign is a creative visual realisation based upon their hometown of Silverdale in Lancashire. The pair collaborated with their friend, the creative director Charlie Drinkwater, to build a highly detailed model village that embodies many of the stories and memories that they have of the place.

Having previously performed at Glastonbury, Latitude and SXSW,  and headlined London’s Scala, Aquilo are set to make a long awaited return to touring early in 2022. Tickets for all of their UK and European headline shows, listed below are on sale here.

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The duo added, “After having two tours cancelled due to the pandemic we just can’t wait to be back on the road again. We’ve released quite a few songs since we last toured and it usually feels like they take on a life of their own when they enter the live show. Seeing people’s faces that have been tuning into our music over the past two years we’re pretty sure will make the long wait all that bit more worth it.”

‘A Safe Place To Be’ is out now on digital, CD and vinyl formats.

Aquilo have also collaborated as featured artists on two recent releases. They appear on ‘Wasted On You’, a new track from the Swedish neo-classical/electronica artist Peter Sandberg, and also on Mathilda Horner’s soulful piano-pop song ‘I’ll Be Waiting’.

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‘A SAFE PLACE TO BE’
Tracklisting

1. ‘Out In LA’
2.‘Our Bones Turn To Stone’
3.‘Talking To Yourself’
4.‘You Make Me Mad’
5.‘Stupid Not To Try’
6.‘Costume Change’
7.‘Hanging On’
8.‘Our Days Are Numbered’
9.‘Silver Spoon’
10.‘Better Off As Strangers’
11.‘I Wanna See You Smile’

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Live Dates

2nd Feb 2022 – Manchester, Band on the Wall
4th Feb 2022 – London, EartH
5th Feb 2022 – Paris, Le Hasard Ludique
6th Feb 2022 – Amsterdam, Bitterzoet
8th Feb 2022 – Cologne, Club Bahnhof Ehrenfeld
9th Feb 2022 – Berlin, Bi Nuu

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Follow AQUILO
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram

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AMNPLIFY – SR