ILA release new single "Sorry" ahead of album "Motherland"

ILA released "Sorry" on August 18, a single that flips the script on guilt and regret ahead of the band's incoming album, Motherland. The four-piece worked on the record with producer Mikko Gordon, whose credits include The Smile, Idles, Arcade Fire and Beck, and the band described the song's turn from pain toward resilience directly: "Turning heartbreak into resilience, finding strength where there was once only pain."

Motherland's lyric sheet draws on the work of Turkish author Elif Shafak, in particular her novel There Are Rivers In The Sky, using water as a recurring image for the connections between people. That symbolism carries through to the album's artwork, built by Salah Van Puymbroeck under creative direction from Moenia Ladhib.

The band recently spent time opening for The Streets, and Clash's report suggested their worldly-wise songwriting fit naturally alongside Mike Skinner's own style of lyricism on that run of shows.

ILA will play a run of UK shows this November, including stops in Brighton on the 4th, Manchester on the 5th, Leeds on the 7th and Bournemouth on the 8th, giving the band a chance to road-test material from Motherland before the album's release.

Clash's report did not include a release date for the record itself beyond confirming it as ILA's next full-length, leaving Motherland's arrival, like the rest of the band's indie output, tracked for now on the release calendar.