New Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) album "The Laughing Apple" 9/15/17*

Very few details. Titled The Laughing Apple. It looks like this might be a mix of older and new songs?

Tracklist
1. Blackness Of The Night
2. See What Love Did To Me
3. The Laughing Apple
4. Olive Hill
5. Grandsons
6. Mighty Peace
7. Mary And The Little Lamb
8. You Can Do (Whatever)!
9. Northern Wind (Death Of Billy The Kid)
10. Don't Blame Them
11. I'm So Sleepy

 

Some news courtesy of IMWAN:

This is what I found on Maartin Allcock's web site:

I was delighted to record an album, The Laughing Apple, with Yusuf at ICP Studios in Brussels a while back, which will hopefully appear this year. We've already started work on the follow-up album, this time at Benny Andersson's RMV Studio in Stockholm. Both albums are produced by my favourite producer Paul Samwell-Smith, who I worked a lot with in the 1980s and 1990s. I worked on Yusuf's comeback album, An Other Cup, in 2006. It was a brilliant time and Yusuf is a musical genius and such a nice man. While I was in Stockholm I heard of the death of my mother, and Yusuf was very supportive to me. Yusuf's long-time sideman Alun Davies was on acoustic guitar, singing and general support, Kwame Yerboah was on drums and percussion, and I was on basses, acoustic and electric guitars and keyboards. The engineer was David Hefti from Hansa Studios Berlin.

 

Well if you want to sing out, sing out.

 

Available to pre-order on Amazon with a September 15th release date:

CD:

Yusuf/Cat Stevens - The Laughing Apple - Amazon.com Music

Vinyl:

Yusuf/Cat Stevens - The Laughing Apple [LP] - Amazon.com Music

 

Interesting. Given the cover art it looks like it might be a "kids" album. But with Samwell-Smith and Alun Davies involved it's an automatic purchase by me

 

I have a soft spot for early Cat Stevens, so I'm looking forward to the re-recordings of those older tunes.
He's pulled this one out in concert in recent years.

 

His last album had the same logo on the cover.

 

Record companies have put similar stickers on almost all of his Yusef albums.

His last album was amazing.

 

Thanks OP for the heads up! Yusuf has been using both names for a while now. When he started touring again it made sense, because he is known by both.

This is great news, he has been on a spectacular second creative run starting in 2006.

 

I've been waiting for this album for over 2 years since it was first mentioned he was recording with Paul Samwell-Smith. The fantastic cover art fits in well with his classic artwork of Tillerman and Teaser. Seeing there are remakes of old songs, I'm hoping the new songs are in his old singer-songwriter style of that period too as I really hated his last blues dominated album and "Roadsinger" wasn't much better but I did enjoy the majority of "An Other Cup". Fingers crossed this is classic style Cat. With Maartin Allcock on board the guitars at least will sound awesome and I'm really glad Alun Davies is there too as I had a feeling he may not be heard again given his age and health. Maartin also mentions a second new album is almost finished as well.. wow..didn't expect that.
Really hope he tours this one downunder as he is one of the last great performers I have yet to see in concert. Very excited.

 

Even Stevens.

Good cover art.

 

Like the old days he likes to keep his albums short. Around 30-35 minutes long.

 

This is how he was billed on his most recent US tour.

 

Looks like he is the support act.

 

I actually liked Roadsinger the best. It's pretty solid and actually could've stood to be a little longer, IMO. It's very short. Although there was a bonus track for that one that makes it a little bit longer.

 

The last lp was a let down,hope this isn't like that

 

Those early 70s albums are a tough match but he occasionally rises to the task still. Usually one or two clinkers on his recent albums, but overall still pretty good. His web site promised some demos for joining some type of fan club last year - did they ever materialize?

 

Which One opened ?

 

This was a fantastic album. Great version of Procols Devil Came from Kansas.

 

Roadsinger is great. I particularly like the 2 songs of darkness in the middle, "Rain" and World O' Darkness". Cat/Yusuf is great when he's uplifting, but he's also great when he's dark. Think "Trouble" or "Ruins".

 

Exactly.

Try typing his old website address into your browser and see what happens:
www.yusufislam.com

 

REALLY would like to see a tour hit the NW US for this, you don't even know.....

 

From his uplifting side, "Thinking "Bout You" sounds like it could be one of his prime albums, such as Teaser and the Firecat.

 

Oh, ok.