Mike Skinner has shared a surprise album titled ‘The Streets’ under his side project The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light.
The Streets frontman, who has named the record after his band that he reformed in 2018, dropped the album in the early hours of Friday morning (June 25). On Instagram he accompanied the record’s image of himself walking away from camera: “THE DARKER THE SHADOW THE BRIGHTER THE LIGHT ALBUM IS OUT NOW!”
The surprise release follows years of Skinner sharing the odd track from his side project or using variations on the project name in other creative endeavours. In 2017 the DJ, singer and rapper shared a song called ‘In My Head – The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light‘ for a music video promoting model Alexa Chung’s new fashion collection.
That same year he shared the single ‘Bad Decisions In The Night‘ on streaming platforms, and in the previous year posted a few songs under his Mike Skinner Ltd SoundCloud page, including ‘Falling‘.
It’s now thought that the new album ‘The Streets’ could be the soundtrack for a forthcoming film made by Skinner, which he discussed in an interview with the BBC last year.
He told the outlet that he was working on a ‘Quadrophenia’ [the 1979 film based on The Who’s rock opera of the same name] type musical drama film, but for ravers.
Skinner said at the time: “The album is like two years old now. I spent a few months with a script editor which was great and then at the end of the year I decided to kind of do it myself really, and we’ve since got different funding through the music industry, rather than the film industry.
“The film has definitely got things in common with ‘Quadrophenia’. Also, in a weird way, kind of Tommy [the same band’s rock opera] as well, because in my film it’s a musical but the songs are the voiceover. Tommy has got a bit of that, although it’s not surreal like Tommy.
It is not yet clear if ‘The Streets’ is indeed the soundtrack for the film musical, nor is there any information about when Skinner’s film will be released.
Meanwhile, the last work Skinner released under The Streets was last year’s mixtape ‘None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive‘. The band has released five studio albums since 2002.
The Streets’ latest single, ‘Who’s Got The Bag (21st June)’, was intended to coincide with England being fully released from coronavirus lockdown restrictions earlier this month. However, the Government since pushed back on a proposed unlocking until July 19.
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