Florence + The Machine kicked off this year’s Mercury Music Prize, performing ‘Hunger’, the lead single from the band’s Mercury-nominated album ‘High As Hope’.
Released earlier in the summer, ‘High As Hope’ already has the feel of a career-defining moment for Florence (and has suitably earned her the strongest praise of her career from fans and media alike). Featuring the aforementioned ‘Hunger’ alongside ‘Sky Full Of Song’, and ‘Big God’, Florence started writing the record (which is also the first she has officially co-produced) in solitude in South London: routinely cycling to her studio in Peckham everyday to, as she puts it, “bang on the wall with sticks”. She took the songs to Los Angeles with her friend and co-producer Emile Haynie, opening them up along the way for collaboration with the likes of Kamasi Washington, Sampha, Tobias Jesso Jr, Kelsey Lu and Jamie xx. Florence mixed the record in New York, where the daily, reassuring view of that iconic skyline – often in stark contrast to the chaos of the wider world – gave the album its upbeat title.
Watch Florence join the rest of her band to perform ‘Hunger’, below:
