Static-fuzz seventies guitar riffs, cowbell and bursts of brass herald the imminent arrival of Michael Head and The Elastic Band’s latest album as they release the glammed-up, Bowie and Ronson-indebted rush of The Human Race.
Aptly evoking the renewed artistic vitality of the cherished songwriter, who this year celebrated the 40 th anniversary of the release of his first album with The Pale Fountains, the track comes ahead of the release of the 12-track, Loophole
album, released on Fri 17 May 2024 on Modern Sky.
As much matter-of-fact documentarian of life as it passes in front of him as he is a poet and healthy, new world-conjuring fantasist, Head’s work rate has accelerated to provide fans with an unprecedented two albums inside two years. With a catalogue of well-documented missteps and blameless, release-delaying mishaps dotted through his life with not only The Pale Fountains but also later, feted bands Shack and The Strands, a sense of personal and artistic equilibrium arrives at the same time as his timely suite of beautiful new songs.
Having already revealed the evocative song sung from his own cradle, Ciao Ciao Bambino, the ‘Toxteth Ghost Story’ that is Shirl’s Ghost, a forbidden romance in Connemara, the vivid picture- painting, 90’s tour story of Ambrosia and straight-up, from-the-heart Tout Suite, the latest track released from Loophole adds another level of expressive Bill Ryder-Jones-produced musicality cut with evocative lyricism.
Head says of the track: ““The human race is from the perspective of someone who’s not from our world. Sent from the Gods to see how civilisation is baring up.” After passing through major UK cities on a recent domestic tour to bring some of Loophole’s songs to the stage before they have arrived in fans’ homes or added to playlists, Head and his band continue to announce live dates that make special events of each appearance.
Head looks ahead to the year-ending, career-defining high of a night at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on Fri 13 December 2024. With more live dates rumoured, fans are also still held in suspense as to what may lie in store between the covers of Head’s autobiography. Although delayed by a year, Head continues to
delve into his storied past to finish the chapters of Ciao Ciao Bambino: A Magical Memoir, to be published by Nine Eight Books on Thu 14 August 2025.
Inevitably beginning in his 1960’s childhood in inner-city Liverpool and traversing decades of observation as music, fashion, film and more found and fell out of trends, the book promises a tour through seven decades of British popular culture as it does a hand-held stroll into every important moment of the
songwriter’s life and career.
Loophole, released on multiple special vinyl formats as well as limited edition, signed cassette, CD and digital versions, was recorded at the celebrated YAWN Studios in West Kirby in the company of Ryder-Jones, and features all of The Red Elastic Band’s gifted musicians, Phil Murphy (drums), Tom Powell (bass), Nathaniel Cummings (guitars/backing vocals) and Martin Smith (trumpet).
