Ben Howard will release his new full-length, Is It?, on June 16 via Island Records. Produced by Bullion (Westerman, Nilüfer Yanya, Orlando Weeks). Prior to making the album, Howard suffered two mini-strokes. Ahead of the LP’s arrival, Howard has shared the album’s lead track, “Couldn’t Make It Up” and says, “I found it impossible not to dwell on the absurdity of it, that with one tiny clot, one can lose all faculties. It really ate into the writing of the record.” The album’s artwork was designed by Portuguese graphic design and illustrator Bráulio Amado.

In March 2022, Ben Howard was sitting in his garden when he found himself unable to think clearly, form sentences or speak for almost an hour. A month later, after the same thing happened again, the Ivor Novello Award-winning singer-songwriter learned he’d suffered two TIAs (transient ischemic attacks – known as mini-strokes). “It was out of the blue,” says the 35 year-old. “It was a confusing time.”

That June, after a month of inconclusive hospital tests Howard and his band decamped to Le Manoir de Léon, where they’d previously worked on his third album Noonday Dream. “We went in and put down ten songs in ten days,” Howard says, “We worked through the heatwave, the air conditioning broke, after what had happened I was so tired in the afternoons that I slept a lot. We just played solidly and slept, there was no time for retrospection.”

Next month, Ben kicks off a UK and European tour in Madrid at La Riviera on the May 18, hitting cities through Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the UK including an already sold-out show at London’s new Alexandra Palace Park on July 22. A new date at London’s Royal Albert Hall is now announced for June 1. Tickets go on general sale from Friday 28th April at 10am BST.

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