Mitski has been playing acoustic shows across North America, United Kingdom and Europe to support the album already. However, this upcoming tour will incorporate a full band, closer resembling the lush and layered studio recordings found on the album.

The venues chosen are exclusively seated venues as described by Mitski herself as she said: “All of these are seated venues, and some of the best seats are reserved for the fan presale.” The choice of venue reflects the laid-back sonic aesthetic of the new album especially in comparison to previous works like Puberty 2 in 2016.

Mitski is going on tour next year with her full band across Europe with multi-night stops in the UK, Berlin, and Amsterdam. Richard Dawson, Miya Folick, and Iceage will be opening up. Fan presale tickets are available starting at 10AM local time tomorrow, October 18th pic.twitter.com/otRylOx53I

— mitski (@mitskileaks) October 17, 2023

The tour starts on April 27^th of next year in Edinburgh, for two nights at Usher Hall, before heading into Manchester’s 02 Apollo for two nights on May 1^st and 2^nd and then Dublin’s 3Arena on May 4th. Mitski then heads into Wolverhampton at The Civic At The Halls on May 6^th, before heading to the Eventim Apollo in London on the 8^th-10^th of May. Mitski then ventures into mainland Europe on May 14^th, playing the Cirque Royal in Brussels, then heading into France, Netherlands, Germany before rounding out the whole portion of the tour playing Theatre 11 in Zurich.

Support for the UK dates will be provided by Newcastle-based folk artist, Richard Dawson, who has released acclaimed albums such as 2020 and Peasant and Miya Follick for the shows in London and Wolverhampton.

Talking about the new album, Mitski has called it her most American, as she said: “I’m always trying to figure out what it means to be American. But especially with this album, I think I’m trying to reconcile all my various identities with being American today. I feel like I’ve always been seeing my own identities through the eyes of other people who haven’t lived my identities. And I kind of think maybe that’s also very uniquely American. I’m Asian American. I’m half white, half Asian. And so I don’t really fit into either community very well. I am another in America, even though I am American.”

Tickets for Mitski’s upcoming 17-date run will be available on general sale on Friday 20^th October at 10am. Tickets can be found and purchased here.

Tour Dates

27/04/2024 – Usher Hall – Edinburgh, United Kingdom
28/04 – Usher Hall – Edinburgh, United Kingdom
01/05 – 02 Apollo – Manchester, United Kingdom
02/05 – 02 Apollo – Manchester, United Kingdom
04/05 – 3Arena – Dublin, Republic of Ireland
06/05 – The Civic At The Halls – Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
08/05 – Eventim Apollo – London, United Kingdom
09/05 – Eventim Apollo – London, United Kingdom
14/05 – Cirque Royal – Brussels, Belgium
17/05 – Le Grand Rex – Paris, France
20/05 – Royal Theatre Carre – Amsterdam, Netherlands
21/05 – Royal Theatre Carre – Amsterdam, Netherlands
24/05 – Tempodrom – Berlin, Germany
25/05 – Tempodrom – Berlin, Germany
28/05 – Jahrhunderthalle – Frankfurt, Germany

“Heat Lightning” is out now. https://t.co/9qrpD5lCiX pic.twitter.com/Nw9mIIkzuK

— mitski (@mitskileaks) December 7, 2021

The 31-year-old singer’s new single has also been released with an accompanying lyrical video created by Alex Moy. The music video features retro-Esque graphics which perfectly match the track’s dreamy 80’s aesthetic. The track opens with soft percussion and gentle guitar lines which progress to a crescendo after the initial chorus. The lyrical content is perfectly aligned with the dreamy synthesiser filled musical world created by Mitski.

Within the press release, Mitski has given the following statement, the singer described how she “needed songs that could help me forgive both others and myself…I needed to create this space mostly for myself where I sat in that gray area.” Much like the album’s remaining tracklist, “Heat Lightning” was written on piano and was transformed into an atmospherical ode to the “sleeping eyelid of the sky.”

Laurel Hell is the singer’s first full release since her fifth studio album Be the Cowboy. The album was released in 2018 through Dead Oceans and was received with great critical success. “Heat Lightning” is the third single to be released from the singer’s upcoming album. The album’s first single “Working For The Knife” was released on 5th October 2021 via Dead Oceans. The single’s release marked the singer’s first major release since her hiatus. The album’s second single “The Only Heartbreaker” was released on 9th November 2021 and was also released with an artistic music video.

The press release gives the following description for Laurel Hell, “Laurel Hell is a soundtrack for transformation, a map to the place where vulnerability and resilience, sorrow and delight, error and transcendence can all sit within our humanity, can all be seen as worthy of acknowledgment, and ultimately, love. It cements Mitski’s reputation as an artist who possesses the power of turning our most savage and alienated experiences into the very elixir that cures them. “I wrote what I needed to hear. As I’ve always done.”

The release date of Mitski’s new album was announced last month ahead of her upcoming sold-out tour. The album was written before and during 2018 but was finished and mixed in May 2021 whilst the world experienced difficult and uncertain times. The record’s process marks the longest period in which Mitski has spent on a release. The upcoming album sees the singer work with long term collaborator Patrick Hyland, who has worked with Mitski since her 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. The duo aimed for the album to “to be more uptempo and dance-y. I needed to create something that was also a pep talk.”

After the release of Laurel Hell, Mitski will hit the road to begin her sold-out tour. The worldwide tour kicks off with a performance in North Carolina on 17th February 2022, after 33 dates the singer concludes her American leg with a set in Nashville on 31st March 2022. On April 21st 2022 the singer will embark on the UK leg of her tour with a performance in Bristol and will conclude her UK dates with a performance at London’s Brixton Academy on 29th April 2022. Mitski will then perform at a string of European cities before the tour’s final show in Los Angeles.

Mitski UK tour dates

21/04/2022 – Marble Factory – Bristol
22/04 – University Union Refectory – Leeds
23/04 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow
25/04 – Vicar Street – Dublin
26/04 – Manchester Academy – Manchester
28/04 – The Roundhouse – London
29/04 – O2 Academy Brixton – London

Click here to pre-order Laurel Hell.

Click here to purchase tickets.

Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz

‘Be the Cowboy’ follows a single protagonist, who Mitski told The Outline “This protagonist is a person who’s in me. It’s just I’m not this person all the time. It’s this woman who feels powerless and overcompensates by exercising extreme control on herself and on her environment, and just trying to be powerful within her own the limits of her body and who she is, but kind of just unravelling a little bit because the amount of control she’s exercising on to herself maybe isn’t healthy or isn’t natural. There’s something more warm and human inside that she’s pushing down in order to appear strong to the world.”

The singer-songwriter, will play her largest UK shows to date as part of the string of UK and European tour dates, including a massive London show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. She is set to begin the UK part of her tour in Manchester on the 19th of September and will conclude the UK part of her tour on the 26th of September in London.

“I will neglect everything else, including me as a person, just to get to keep making music. And even if it actually sometimes hurts, it doesn’t matter as long as I get to be a musician,” Mitski says, speaking to Pitchfork about the album’s themes.

19/09/2018 – Manchester Gorilla – Manchester
20/09 – Saint Luke’s – Glasgow
22/09 – Tivoli Theatre – Dublin
24/09 – Brudnell Social Club – Leeds
25/09 – Trinity Arts Centre – Bristol
26/09 – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire – London
28/09 – La Marquinerie – Paris
29/09 – TRIX – Antwerp
01/10 – Gebäude 9 – Cologne
02/10 – Paradiso Noord (Tolhuistuin) – Amsterdam
04/10 – Musik & Frieden – Berlin
05/10 – Vega – Vesterbro
06/10 – Uebel & Gefährlich – Hamburg