Ibibio Sound Machine Share New Video, Afro-Electro Group Announce New U.S. Tour Dates

Ibibio Sound Machine will release their new album Doko Mien tomorrow, and today they are sharing the video for the groovesome, inclusive album single "Wanna Come Down." Brooklyn Vegan described the track as an "infectious jam from the album that mixes disco, '80s electro with English and Ibibio language lyrics," and the video captures the song's liveliness. Watch the Steve Gullick-directed video here!

The band previously released title track "Tell Me (Doko Mien)" featuring disco beats colliding with polyrhythm and pizzicato guitar. Stereogum called it "an absurdly infectious percussive party track seemingly inspired by the same influences that fueled Talking Heads and LCD Soundsystem," and Afropunk said it "sounds like the lost child of some early-'80s, New York session produced by Lisa Lisa's Cult Jam, or by Gloria Estefan's old Miami crew." The group also recently shared the sultry "Guess We Found a Way," a refreshing change of pace from the more uptempo cuts previously released from Doko Mien, which Stereogumdescribed as "a deep, dreamy groove of a slow jam"-a further indication of the many moods and influences at play across the album's 11 tracks.

"Music is a universal language, but spoken language can help you think about what makes you emotional, what makes you feel certain feelings, what you want to see in the world," says frontwoman Eno Williams. When she uses both English and Ibibio-the Nigerian language from which her band's name is derived-on Doko Mien, the group somehow produces a world of both entrancing specificity and comforting universality, a language entirely of their own. In a glowing piece in the New York Times, the songs on the band's 2017 second album, Uyai, were praised for following "in the tradition of much African music, [making] themselves the conscience of a community." By pulsing the mystic shapes of Williams' lines through further inventive, glittering collages of genre on Doko Mien, Ibibio Sound Machine crack apart the horizon separating cultures, between nature and technology, between joy and pain, between tradition and future.

Long lauded for their jubilant, explosive live shows (Entertainment Weekly best described them, saying, "If the United Nations' General Assembly convened at Studio 54, Ibibio Sound Machine would easily be that night's headlining act"), the group fully capture that energy and communication on the new album. After a set of recent album-release shows throughout the UK including sold-out shows in London, Bristol, and Manchester, Ibibio Sound Machine just announced new fall UK dates and a rescheduled U.S. tour set for this summer. Stateside shows include an appearance at MRG30 in North Carolina and at Pickathon in Oregon. See their current tour routing below!

TOUR DATES

May 04 Leeds, UK - Live at Leeds

May 05 Leicester, UK - Handmade Festival

May 24 London, UK - All Points East Festival

Jul 12 Birmingham, UK - Mostly Jazz Festival

Jul 13 Reading, UK - Readipop Festival

Jul 18 Cheshire, UK - Bluedot Festival

Jul 25 New York, NY - Brooklyn Bowl

Jul 26 Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall

Jul 27 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle (MRG30)

Jul 30 Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan Lounge

Jul 31 Oakland, CA - The New Parish

Aug 1-3 Happy Valley, OR - Pickathon

Aug 7 Newquay, UK - Boardmasters Festival

Sep 28 Portsmouth, UK - Wedgewood Rooms

Oct 01 Guildford, UK - Boileroom

Oct 05 Nottingham, UK - Rescue Rooms

Oct 07 Norwich, UK - Norwich Arts Centre

Oct 08 Newcastle, UK - Riverside

Oct 09 Glasgow, UK - Classic Grand

Oct 10 Liverpool, UK - Invisible Wind Factory

Oct 11 Sheffield, UK - O2 Academy 2

Oct 15 Cardiff, UK - Plas

Oct 16 Exeter, UK - Exeter Phoenix

Oct 17 Aldershot, UK - West End Centre

Oct 18 Birmingham, UK - Hare and Hounds

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