Oh Wonder announce new album ’22 Make’
Oh Wonder kondigt vandaag hun nieuw album 22 Make aan, het vervolg op hun laatste project 22 Break. Tijdens de coronacrisis hing de relatie van Josephine Vander Gucht en Anthony West aan een zijden draadje. Het Britse koppel dook hun thuisstudio in en schreef met 22 Break de relatieproblemen van zich af. Ondertussen zijn de brokken gelijmd en zijn de twee gelukkig getrouwd. Tijd dus om de cirkel rond te maken: 22 Make (two to make) is de ultieme verzoening. Het album verschijnt op 22 juli.
Oh Wonder speelt in 2022 twee Nederlandse shows:
Oh Wonder are back today with news of a new album, 22 Make, and brand new single Magnificent.
22 Make is the surprise second half of the alt-pop-duo’s 22 Break project, a brand new album they dropped with little warning towards the end of 2021. The band’s most powerful and intimate music thus far, it unpicked a turbulent period in the incredible story of Oh Wonder: here were universal themes (loneliness, inadequacy, resentment, fears for the future) as experienced by one couple in real-time, all blown up in the pandemic. Not many bands can make a break-up album that culminates in them tying the knot – but then again, Oh Wonder have never been like other bands. Coming out of 22 Break and all the soul-searching that it forced them to do, Josephine and Anthony got married and channelled all this into 22 Make: a whole new album set for release on July 22nd, soundtracking the light at the end of a tunnel and completing the dual project (with 11 songs on each half).
“When we nearly broke up during the pandemic, we used music as a way out,” Oh Wonder write, introducing the project in its entirety today. “We wrote all our pain, sadness and confusion into a collection of songs that we eventually released as the album, 22 Break. But for us, that was only half of the story. We managed to survive our rocky patch, and emerge stronger than ever and full of love for each other. It only felt right therefore, to write about the other side, where you realise not just that you’re meant for each other, but also that it also takes two people to make a love flourish. We are thrilled to be releasing 22 Make, an album full of love and life-affirming songs that reflect on fate, gratitude and being there for someone.”
This transformative period continues Oh Wonder’s remarkable, homegrown success story. 2020’s acclaimed album No One Else Can Wear Your Crown continued a run of back-to-back top 10 albums from the band who have – on their own distinct terms – become one of UK pop’s more unsuspecting breakthroughs (2.7 billion streams, 1.7 million adjusted album sales, and vocal fans in the likes of Billie Eilish). A huge world tour has been confirmed through 2022, including a London date at Brixton Academy, whilst Oh Wonder even founded and literally built from the ground-up the hugely popular Nola cafe in Peckham early on in the pandemic. Through opening up to their fans and each other, the ‘Make or Break?’ poised by 22 Break and 22 Make appears not so much a question, as an active choice – to be as honest as possible, to move forward, and to begin a brand new chapter in the story of Oh Wonder.
