Ibibio Sound Machine release title-track to new album Pull The Rope

Photo credit: Matilda Hill-Jenkins

Ibibio Sound Machine are today sharing the title-track from their forthcoming album ‘Pull The Rope’, which arrives on 3 May via Merge. On the new single, off-kilter electronic beats provide a bed for an irresistibly funky bassline, whilst group chants and cyclic grooves fuse together, transporting the listener into a dancefloor trance.

The band explain that “The track is about the hope of finding a peaceful way to overcome our differences in the world. The idea of standing at two ends of a rope symbolizes this. We recruited our friends Richmond Kessie & Helen McDonald as well as Eno’s mum to lend a bigger sound to the chorus vocals. Musically it’s a mix of post punk and electronic sounds.”

Ibibio Sound Machine recently returned with ‘Got To Be Who U Are’ alongside announcing their biggest UK tour to date, including a special headline show at KOKO in Camden on 6 June. Full tour dates listed below.

‘Pull the Rope’, the new record by Ibibio Sound Machine, casts the Eno Williams and Max Grunhard-led outfit in a new light. The hope, joy, and sexiness of their music remains, but, further honing the edge of their acclaimed 2022 album ‘Electricity’, the connection they aim to foster has shifted venues, from the sunny buoyancy of a sunlit festival to a sweat-soaked, all-night dance club. The atmosphere has changed, but you’re still having the time of your life.

Williams and Grunhard attribute this shift to a matter of collaborators, recording Pull the Rope with Sheffield-based producer Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, M.I.A.) over the course of two weeks. The way the pair wrote songs changed significantly — rather than Eno penning lyrics to music generated by Max and company’s jamming, Orton started with Eno and Max writing together before adding the band. With less time in the studio and a new way of considering how they built songs, the duo found making decisions about Pull the Rope’s sound quicker and more instinctual than before.

In melding their songwriting process, Grunhard and Williams have, impossibly, pulled the trick of making Ibibio Sound Machine a tighter band than ever before, building out from their core in a way that highlights the electrifying group of musicians they play with. Rather than recording with the full band in the room, Pull the Rope was sculpted, elements added and shaped by Grunhard, Williams, and Orton along the way.

The message in their fantastic new album ‘Pull the Rope’, is hope in darkness, bliss in spite of bleakness. Once again, Ibibio Sound Machine are here to provide the soundtrack to the best night of your life, and the better world to come.

Ibibio Sound Machine 2024 UK & IE Tour Dates

6 May – Boiler Shop, Newcastle

11 May – Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast

22 May – Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth

23-26 May – Bearded Theory Festival, Walton-on-Trent

23 May – Arts Centre, Norwich

25 May – Future Yard, Birkenhead

5 Jun – Junction 2, Cambridge

6 Jun – KOKO, London

1-4 Aug – Wilderness Festival, Oxfordshire

15-18 Aug – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons

8 Nov – SWX, Bristol

9 Nov – Project House, Leeds

14 Nov – Concorde 2, Brighton

15 Nov – Academy 2, Manchester

16 Nov – Whelan’s, Dublin

18 Nov – Summerhall, Edinburgh

19 Nov – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham