Bicep Announce New Album SLUG and Share Three New Singles
The duo’s third studio album arrives in January, with contributions from Eartheater, Clark, George Riley and more.
Bicep have announced SLUG, their third studio album, which will be released on 29 January 2027 via Ninja Tune. Alongside the announcement, the duo have shared three tracks, ‘Gas’, ‘Ultra’ and ‘Equarium’, and confirmed live shows in New York and London next year. The 18-track record follows their 2021 studio album Isles and last year’s collaborative soundtrack TAKKUUK.
The new songs introduce several of the record’s guests: Lauren Duffus and SOARR appear on ‘Gas’, Eartheater and Saskia feature on ‘Ultra’, and Kehina contributes to ‘Equarium’. They follow the earlier release of ‘Air’, ‘Lemonder’ and ‘Viper’, with the album being previewed through three sets of three tracks, each accompanied by a film. Elsewhere on SLUG, collaborators include Clark, George Riley, KUČKA, Sassy 009 and Rowena Fysx.
Work on the album took Bicep back to ideas they had left unfinished a decade or more ago. During a break from touring, the pair spent less time online and following new releases, returning instead to their archive to reconsider demos and techniques they had not previously known how to develop. A new studio, including a purpose-built vocal booth, also gave them space to work more closely with collaborators, reshaping songs around the material their guests sent back.
‘We wanted to make a much more varied album than our previous ones and push what people might expect BICEP to sound like,’ the duo explain. ‘We just wanted an album full of surprises and contrast.’
That interest in contrast also informed the title, which came from comparing land slugs with the colours and forms of their underwater counterparts. Across the record, the duo worked with distorted drums, processed vocals and contrasting synth textures. ‘We’ve always played with melancholy in our music and tried to combine feelings of happiness and sadness,’ they say, describing the new album as a fuller exploration of those conflicting emotions.
The film accompanying ‘Gas’, ‘Ultra’ and ‘Equarium’ was directed by Alex Takács, also known as Young Replicant, and follows a group of pigeon fanciers carrying out a heist. Takács drew inspiration from a report about an expensive racing pigeon stolen in Brussels. The previous film, directed by Ryan Doubiago, followed two UK free-party crews from setting up through to the following morning; a third will centre on demolition derbies.
Bicep will play New York’s Knockdown Center on 20 March 2027 and a London venue, still to be announced, on 31 July. Presale opens at 10am local time on 29 October, followed by general sale at 10am local time on 30 October. Registration is available through their website. Before those dates, Bicep Live returns for a sold-out Royal Albert Hall show on 26 November.
