Robert Plant’s new album, lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, will be released September 9 on Nonesuch/ Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Plant, the album is his label debut and features 11 new recordings, nine of which are original songs written by Plant with his band, The Sensational Space Shifters-Justin Adams: bendirs, djembe, guitars, tehardant, background vocals; John Baggott: keyboards, loops, moog bass, piano, tabal, background vocals; Juldeh Camara: kologo, ritti, Fulani vocals; Billy Fuller: bass, drum programming, omnichord, upright bass; Dave Smith: drum set; and Liam “Skin” Tyson: banjo, guitar, background vocals. Pre-orders are available at robertplant.com and include a limited-edition print and an instant download of “Rainbow,” which will be released as a digital single on June 24. The track is streaming now at NPR Music. A trailer for the album is available now.
Plant and the band will tour the US this fall, including two nights at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,September 27 and 28, as part of Nonesuch Records at BAM: Celebrating 50 Years of the Label without Labels; further dates will be announced soon.
lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar is Plant’s first record since 2010’s Band of Joy, which followed 2007’s six-time Grammy Award-winning collaboration with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand. Justin Adams and John Baggott of The Sensational Space Shifters appeared on Plant’s 2002 release Dreamland, while all but Camara and Smith appeared on 2005’s Mighty Rearranger. The new-album line-up recently toured the world before recording lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar at Helium Studios in Wiltshire and Real World Studios in Bath, UK. “Rainbow” was recorded in Contino Rooms in London. Tchad Blake mixed all but three tracks on the album.
“It’s really a celebratory record, powerful, gritty, African, Trance meets Zep,” Plant says. “The whole impetus of my life as a singer has to be driven by a good brotherhood. I am very lucky to work with The Sensational Space Shifters. They come from exciting areas of contemporary music…I have been around awhile and I ask myself, do I have anything to say? Is there a song still inside me? In my heart? I see life and what’s happening to me. Along the trail there are expectations, disappointments, happiness, questions and strong relationships,” Plant explains. “….and now I’m able to express my feelings through melody, power and trance; together in a kaleidescope of sound, colour, and friendship.”
lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar track list
1. Little Maggie
(Trad. arr. by Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
2. Rainbow
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Tyson)
3. Pocketful of Golden
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Camara/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
4. Embrace Another Fall
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Camara/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
5. Turn It Up
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
6. A Stolen Kiss
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Tyson)
7. Somebody There
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
8. Poor Howard *
9. House of Love
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
10. Up on the Hollow Hill (Understanding Arthur)
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Fuller/Tyson)
11. Arbaden (Maggie’s Babby)
(Plant/Adams/Baggott/Camara/Fuller/Smith/Tyson)
*All songs published by Sons of Einion Ltd and administered by WB Music Corp (ASCAP) except “Poor Howard” [Plant/Adams/Baggott/Camara/Fuller/Tyson], which is derived from “Po’ Howard” [Ledbetter (“Lead Belly”), A. Lomax and J. Lomax Sr.] and is published by Global Jukebox Publishing (BMI) and Folkways Music Publishers.
