Arcade Fire performs during a benefit concert in memory of Denis Blanchette, the lighting technician who was killed at the Parti Quebecois’ election-night victory rally.PAUL CHIASSON/The Canadian Press
Update: The album is no longer streaming on arcadefire.com or YouTube as of the afternoon on Oct. 28.
Reflektor, Arcade Fire's much-anticipated fourth LP, is now available after the band posted a stream of the 85-minute double album five days before its official Oct. 29 release. The rush job was a response to an online leak.
On YouTube and the Montreal rockestra's website, Reflektor's 14 often danceable songs play against the 1959 Brazilian film Orfeu Negro (or, in English, Black Orpheus). The movie, which influenced Reflektor, is itself renowned for its bossa nova soundtrack.
It has been speculated that the original leak was a result of a pair of stores (Rollercoaster Records in Kilkenny, Ireland, and a Czech Republic retailer) selling the album early. The rhythmically intense Reflektor, the follow-up to the band's Grammy-winning LP The Suburbs from 2010, was heavily inspired by a trip to Haiti by singer-songwriter Win Butler and his wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne.
Leading up to Tuesday's official release date, Arcade Fire will perform at the annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts on Saturday, Oct. 26. That concert, the first of the two-day affair at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif., will be featured as a free web cast, with Arcade Fire sharing the star-studded bill with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Queens Of the Stone Age, My Morning Jacket, Jack Johnson, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Heart, Jenny Lewis and fun.
On Monday evening, Arcade Fire presents highlights from the new record at a live event from Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. CBC Music and NPR will live stream the performance, beginning at 10 p.m., ET.
And one day later, on Tues., Oct. 29, the band plays a show at a secret location in Los Angeles. Ticket info at musicexperiment.com.
Reflektor's track list
Disc one:
Reflektor
We Exist
Flashbulb Eyes
Here Comes the Night Time
Normal Person
You Already Know
Joan of Arc
Disc two:
Here Comes the Night Time II
Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)
It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)
Porno
Afterlife
Supersymmetry
Brad Wheeler