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May 17, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Florence and the Machine

Florence + the Machine (aka Florence Welch and backing band) is releasing a new album, High As Hope, on June 29 via Republic. Previously she shared a video for its single “Hunger” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Last night she stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform “Hunger.” It was a fantastic performance with a full backing band, including a harp, that featured Welch making complete use of the stage and the space between the stage and the audience, dancing around and getting closer to the audience than most performers on TV shows usually do. Watch it below.

Welch wrote, co-produced, and recorded the majority of High As Hope by herself, cycling to her studio in Peckham every day. It’s the first time she’s co-produced a Florence + the Machine album. Then she finished the songs in Los Angeles with her friend and co-producer Emile Haynie and mixed the album in New York. Her daily views of the New York skyline inspired the album’s title, because, as a previous press release said, the NYC skyline is “often in stark contrast to the chaos of the wider world.”

The album features Kamasi Washington, Sampha, Tobias Jesso Jr, Kelsey Lu, and Jamie xx.

Of “Hunger,” Welch had this to say in the previous press release: “This song is about the ways we look for love in things that are perhaps not love, and how attempts to feel less alone can sometimes isolate us more. I guess I made myself more vulnerable in this song to encourage connection, because perhaps a lot more of us feel this way than we are able to admit. Sometimes when you can’t say it, you can sing it.”

The press release said that on the album Welch “writes of growing up in South London, of family, relationships and art itself.” In Welch’s own words: “There’s a lot of love in this record, loneliness too, but a lot of love…. It’s always a work in progress, and I definitely don’t have everything figured out. But this feels like quite a pure expression of who I am now, as an artist, and an honest one. I’m just more comfortable with who I am.”

Florence + the Machine shared a brand new song, “Sky Full of Song,” in April and it was released on limited edition 7-inch on Record Store Day (it was one of our Songs of the Week). It is included on the album. The “Sky Full of Song” 7-inch included on the flipside a recording of “New York poem (for Polly),” which is taken from Welch’s forthcoming book, Useless Magic, which is out July 5 via Crown Publishing/Penguin. A press release describes it as “a collection of lyrics, artwork and poetry offering a unique, personal insight into her creative process.”

Florence + the Machine’s last album was 2015’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.

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