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Hear IDLES Remix Florence + the Machine’s ‘Heaven Is Here’

'IDLES are one of my favourite bands and I’ve been wanting to work on something together for a while,' Florence Welch says
Photo: Emma McIntyre / Getty Images for KROQ / Entercom

In an unexpected artistic pairing, U.K. rock outfit IDLES has remixed Florence + the Machine‘s “Heaven Is Here,” the original version of which can be found on the Florence Welch-led group’s latest album, Dance Fever.

“IDLES are one of my favourite bands and I’ve been wanting to work on something together for a while,” Welch says. “It might be strange for people to think but I see a lot of symbiosis in what we do in terms of live performance. Connection above all else. Joyful rage and togetherness. A lot of people wished that ‘Heaven Is Here’ was longer. And I think IDLES have done the perfect job at turning it into a much-demanded dance track that loses nothing of the hex at its heart.”

Adds IDLES’ Mark Bowen, “Dance Fever is quite a cathartic album for me, speaking a lot to the yearning for the release of performing but also introspecting on the need itself. It lives on the line of tension between the need for release and getting it (is that not the best bit?), no more is this encapsulated on ‘Heaven is Here.’ I wanted to sit with that tension but then also lavish in the release on this remix.”

 

A worldwide chart-topper, Dance Fever has already been augmented by a live album of the same name, recorded last month during two sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Florence + the Machine kick off a U.K. tour Nov. 16 in Cardiff, Wales, and will head to Australia and New Zealand for shows next March.

IDLES are about to embark on their own tour of that part of the world, with a 10-show run beginning Oct. 27 in Christchurch.