Sophia Michaels
After Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds promised an upcoming album when they released their Johnny Marr-assisted new single at the tail end of 2022, the former Oasis guitarist has finally announced that a new LP, Council Skies, will arrive this summer.
Ahead of Council Skies’ June 2 release, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds also revealed the LP’s new single “Easy Now,” and with it, a music video featuring Milly Alcock, who recently starred as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen on House of the Dragon.
Council Skies, named after a book by illustrator and Noel’s friend Pete McKee, finds Gallagher reminiscing about his adolescence in Manchester before he and his brother and their band moved to London and hit it big at the dawn of the Britpop era.
“It’s going back to the beginning. Daydreaming, looking up at the sky and wondering about what life could be… that’s as true to me now as it was in the early ‘90s. When I was growing up in poverty and unemployment, music took me out of that,” Gallagher said of the album in a statement.
“Top of the Pops on TV transformed your Thursday night into this fantasy world, and that’s what I think music should be. I want my music to be elevating and transforming in some way.”
The album, recorded at Noel’s own Lone Star Sound Recording Studio in London, was produced by Gallagher and Pete “Strangeboy” Stacey and features orchestration laid down at the famed Abbey Road Studios. Marr appears on three tracks over the course of Council Skies, including the first single, “Pretty Boy.”
“For this new record, it was the first thing I wrote, the first thing I demoed, and the first thing I finished, so it’s only right that it’s the first thing people get to hear,” Gallagher previously said of “Pretty Boy.” “Massive shout out to my mainest man Johnny Marr for taking it somewhere special.”
In addition to the album — available to preorder now — Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will also release a deluxe edition of the LP featuring instrumentals, non-album tracks, radio sessions, and remixes by Pet Shop Boys and the Cure’s Robert Smith.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds released their last studio album, Who Built the Moon?, back in 2017.
Council Skies Track List
1. I’m Not Giving Up Tonight
2. Pretty Boy
3. Dead To The World
4. Open The Door, See What You Find
5. Trying To Find A World That’s Been And Gone
6. Easy Now
7. Council Skies
8. There She Blows!
9. Love Is A Rich Man
10. Think Of A Number
