''Palaces'' is the third studio album by Australian electronic musician Flume, released on 20 May 2022 through Future Classic. It includes collaborations with Oklou, May-a, Quiet Bison, Kučka, Laurel,

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, Caroline Polachek and

Damon Albarn Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...

. The album was announced alongside the release of lead single " Say Nothing", featuring May-a. At the

2022 ARIA Music Awards The 2022 ARIA Music Awards were the 36th Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAs) and consist of a series of awards, including the 2022 ARIA Artisan Awards, ARIA ...

, the album earned Flume a nomination for

ARIA Award for Best Solo Artist The ARIA Award for Best Solo Artist, is an award first presented at the 2021 ARIA Music Awards as ARIA Award for Best Artist. It is handed out by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), an organisation whose aim is "to advance th ...

and album was nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Release, Best Cover Art, Best Produced Album and Best Mixed Album. The album was nominated for Australian Album of the Year at the

2022 J Awards The 2022 J Awards are the 18th annual J Awards, established by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's youth-focused radio station Triple J Triple J (stylised in all lowercase) is a government-funded, national Australian Radio in Austra ...

Background and recording

After returning to Australia following the end of his world tour in support of '' Skin'' (2016) and '' Hi This Is Flume'' (2019), Flume moved to a coastal town in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales, where he says he found "inspiration from the flora and fauna surrounding him". He also made field recordings of birds, which are used throughout the album. According to Flume, the album was also influenced by late Scottish producer

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Release and promotion

Flume announced the album and its track listing on 2 February 2022, also releasing the song " Say Nothing" featuring May-a as the album's lead single and its music video the same day. The video contains similar visuals to those Flume uploaded on his

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website throughout 2021. Flume said the track is about "feelings of post relationship clarity" and was written "midway through 2020 while the pandemic was still pretty new", although it was finished in early 2021. "Sirens" featuring American singer Caroline Polachek, was released as the second single on 1 April 2022. "Escape", co-produced by Quiet Bison and featuring Australian singer Kučka, and "Palaces" featuring British singer

, were released as a double single on 24 April 2022. "Hollow" featuring Australian singer

was released on 18 May 2022 as the fourth single.

Critical reception

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 72, based on 6 reviews.

Track listing

All tracks produced by Flume, except where noted.

Charts

References

{{Flume 2022 albums Albums produced by Flume (musician) Flume (musician) albums Albums produced by Danny L Harle