News

August 3, 2020

New single ‘Gadigal Land’ out this Friday

NEW SINGLE ‘GADIGAL LAND’ OUT FRIDAY. PRE-SAVE CLICK HERE: midnightoil.lnk.to/GadigalPreSave
 
This Friday we’ll be releasing our first piece of new music in nearly 20 years with ‘Gadigal Land’ – the first single from our forthcoming mini-album ‘The Makarrata Project’ (out late October). It features special contributions by vocalists Kaleena Briggs, Bunna Lawrie, Dan Sultan plus a lyrical section written and delivered by Gadigal poet, Joel Davison.
 
The following night, a special studio video of the song will premiere during the National Indigenous Music Awards (www.nima.musicnt.com.au) telecast on NITV from 7pm AEST and simulcast on National Indigenous Television (NITV), Doubl​e J, National Indigenous Radio Service, TEABBA, Facebook, Youtube and ​Twitter.
 
We’ve always been happy to lend our voice to those who call for racial justice, but it really feels like we’ve reached a tipping point. We urge the federal government to heed the messages in the Uluru Statement From The Heart and act accordingly. Hopefully this song and ‘The Makarrata Project’ mini-album we’ve created alongside our First Nations friends can help shine a bit more light on the urgent need for genuine reconciliation in this country and in many other places too.
 
After centuries of struggle for recognition and justice, 2017’s Uluru Statement called for the establishment of a ‘First Nations Voice’ enshrined in the Australian Constitution and the establishment of a ‘Makarrata Commission’ to supervise agreement-making and truth-telling between governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We will donate our share of any proceeds received from this release to organisations which seek to elevate The Uluru Statement From The Heart in particular and Indigenous reconciliation more broadly (www.fromtheheart.com.au + www.ulurustatement.org). Sony Music Entertainment Australia will match any artist contribution.
 
– Midnight Oil

 

February 14, 2020

Midnight Oil 2020 update

Over the coming weeks you’ll start hearing about some of the specific things we’re doing in 2020, so before all that starts we wanted to tell you directly about the broad brushstrokes.
 
After coming home from Europe via Birdsville in mid-2019 we started recording new music together for the first time in nearly two decades. Our mate Warne Livesey travelled from Toronto to Sydney to produce these sessions just as he did on Diesel & Dust, Blue Sky Mining and Capricornia. It felt good to be back in the studio, and intriguing to see where it all ended up.
 
We had over 20 songs we wanted to record and eight of them shared a strong focus on the issue of indigenous reconciliation, so we invited some of our First Nations friends to collaborate with us in various ways on each of these eight tracks. Our collective work will be released as a mini-album called The Makarrata Project in June/July. Band profits from this release will be donated to charities which elevate The Uluru Statement From The Heart (ulurustatement.org/the-statement). This mid-year release of The Makarrata Project will be accompanied by a small handful of themed live performances in Australia featuring some of the very special guests who helped create this mini-album.
 
Then toward the end of the year we’ll release a new Midnight Oil album which is currently at final mixing stage. This completely separate batch of material deals with various lyrical themes including climate chaos, no surprise after the mega fires we’ve just experienced in Australia. We plan to follow the album with lots more Australian and international touring across late 2020 and early 2021.
 
Over the next 12 months we will also be releasing various singles from both The Makarrata Project mini-album and the new Midnight Oil album. We’re seriously excited about all of these songs and the two separate works on which they will feature. Stay tuned for more detailed announcements about our new music and our touring plans. Thanks in the meantime for your patience … we know it’s been a long wait but good things take time!
 
Very Best
Midnight Oil
October 14, 2019

Midnight Oil nominated for Best Rock Album and Best Live Act at 2019 ARIA Awards

Congratulations to Midnight Oil on their ARIA Award nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Live Act for their album ‘Armistice Day: Live At The Domain, Sydney’.