Mike Noga Announces September Tour In Honour Of New Album 'King'

Recently minted Cooking Vinyl signee Mike Noga has announced a seven-show run of tour dates around the country to celebrate the release of his third solo album, King.

The ex-drummer of The Drones and lauded solo artist will commence the tour — with his backing band — at Sydney's Brighton Up Bar on Friday 16 September, heading up the coast to play Brisbane's Bearded Lady the following evening. He tackles the next three shows — Adelaide (Grace Emily), Perth (Four5Nine) and Fremantle (Odd Fellow) — by himself, before joining up with his accompanying players twice more before the end of the month, at Melbourne's Northcote Social Club and Hobart's MONA.

King sets itself apart by way of its deep and dark central concept, which centres on Jack and Mary, "a down-and-out couple living in small-town 1950s Australia", and takes loose cues from Georg Buchner's famed 1830s play, Woyzeck. The production itself — which was still unfinished at the time of Buchner's death — is a creatively flexible retelling of the true story of Leipzig wigmaker Johann Christian Woyzeck, who was publicly beheaded in 1824 for the apparently jealousy-fuelled murder of Christiane Woost, a widow with whom he resided.

The album first took root in Noga's brain during a stint in London back in 2014, when he was asked by theatre company Punchdrunk to compose music for their new production, The Drowned Man (which, yes, was also loosely based on Woyzeck); not quite able to lock on and move on, Noga thus spent the majority of the rest of his English stay developing and sculpting the songs that would ultimately make up King.

Also setting the record apart from its peers is its esteemed guest list, including production from Something For Kate frontman Paul Dempsey and album narration from acclaimed actor Noah Taylor (Game Of Thrones, Almost Famous, He Died With A Felafel In His Hand).

King will be released on Friday 26 August via Cooking Vinyl. Pre-orders are available now.

For a full rundown of Mike Noga's tour dates, venues and other booking information, see theGuide.