YUSUF / CAT STEVENS RELEASES SECOND SINGLE AND LYRIC VIDEO FOR “BLACKNESS OF THE NIGHT”
For immediate release
Blackness Of The Night (Audio Only) by Yusuf / Cat Stevens on VEVO.
THE LAUGHING APPLE OUT SEPTEMBER 15. PRE-ORDER AVAILABLE NOW
04 August 2017 (Toronto, ON) – Today Yusuf/Cat Stevens debuts “Blackness of the Night” and its lyric video worldwide. “Blackness of the Night” is the second single from his highly anticipated album, The Laughing Apple, now available for pre-order, out September 15th via his Cat-O-Log Records label/ Decca Records/Universal Music Canada, the country’s leading music company. “Blackness Of The Night” aches of lost innocence as Yusuf alludes to doomed child soldiers, broken families, and waning hope atop elegiac organ and Yusuf’s plaintive guitar.
“’Blackness Of The Night’ was one of my first protest songs for the 60’s,” Yusuf says. “Growing up in London after the war, the memories were strong and bombed ruins still riddled the city. ‘Blackness Of The Night’ reflected the feeling of emptiness wandering the streets at night alone, pondering how to survive in a dark unknown future. It’s got a lot of relativity to the situation of many refugee kids today, lost and abandoned, finding themselves separated from their families and homes in a hostile world.”
The song was originally recorded 50 years ago for Yusuf’s 1967 album, New Masters, but flourishes in a lush new arrangement.
The Laughing Apple was announced last month with the premiere of “See What Love Did To Me,” which Rolling Stone called “a charming update on the breezy, singalong-friendly sound that Yusuf / Cat Stevens helped to pioneer on classic albums such as Tea for the Tillerman” and Stereogum deemed “a lovely folk-pop sway.” The new album follows the common ‘60s template of combining newly-written songs with a number of covers – except that all the covers are from Yusuf's 1967 catalogue. The Laughing Apple celebrates some of his earliest material, presenting the songs as he has always wished they had been recorded.
Yusuf produced The Laughing Apple with Paul Samwell-Smith, the original producer behind Yusuf's landmark recordings, including 1970’s Tea for the Tillerman which contained the classics “Wild World” and “Father and Son”. That multi-platinum album became a benchmark of the singer-songwriter movement and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has named it one of the definitive albums of all time. The new album also marks the return of Yusuf's longtime musical collaborator Alun Davies whose graceful acoustic guitar is an essential component of Yusuf's classic sound.
Yusuf’s music has established him as a timeless voice for all generations. Classic songs like “Wild World”, “Moonshadow”, “Peace Train”, “Morning Has Broken” and “Oh Very Young”, which made him a radio staple during the ‘70s, are used regularly in films and television shows with "Father and Son” recently appearing during a crucial scene in the blockbuster movie Guardians of the Galaxy 2. The music of Yusuf/Cat Stevens will be the subject of an upcoming PBS Soundstage special in September.
Preorder The Laughing Apple here
Tracklisting: The Laughing Apple
- Blackness of the Night
- See What Love Did to Me
- The Laughing Apple
- Olive Hill
- Grandsons
- Mighty Peace
- Mary and the Little Lamb
- You Can Do (Whatever)!
- Northern Wind (Death of Billy the Kid)
- Don’t Blame Them
- I’m So Sleepy
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