Half-Told Tales Arab Strap

• 1 I Get Noise 03:23
• 2 You You You 05:30
• 3 Be a Man 04:42
• 4 Fighting For You 03:06
• 5 Glamour Magick 04:30
• 6 Gape 04:33
• 7 Under Offer 02:36
• 8 Basic Physics 03:39
• 9 Sunsong 03:06
• 10 Dollar Park 04:19
• 11 Mr. Splitfoot 02:40
• 12 Ampersand 04:13
• 13 Fragments 04:17
• 14 Beats Per Minute 05:15
• Total Runtime 55:49

Info for Half-Told Tales

"Half-Told Tales" documents Arab Strap’s ninth studio album and brings together fourteen tracks that once again present the duo in shifting tonal colors. The album was recorded at Chem19 Studios and will be released on September 4, 2026; according to the label, the recordings range from compact song forms to experimental moments without abandoning the band’s familiar narrative power.

Musically, the arc stretches from danceable, almost disco-like beats and hard, near-metal passages to expansive, post-rock-style arrangements; spoken passages meet electronic refinements and folky touches, resulting in an unusually open spectrum. The advance single "You You You" is a track the band themselves describe as a kind of “disco-metal” piece that condenses the album’s interwoven influences.

Arab Strap remain true to their narrative style: Aidan Moffat’s distinctive spoken-word vocals and Malcolm Middleton’s musical inventiveness continue to define the project’s identity, even as both seek new points of friction and sonic ideas. The record highlights the duo’s strengths — clear song structures, laconic to ironic lyrics, and a love of arrangement that places the band in a familiar guise while still repositioning them.

Arab Strap

Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 48kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value!

Arab Strap
are a Scottish indie rock band whose core members are Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult, over time, to adequately sum up the importance, influence or impact Arab Strap and the respective solo projects of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have had on Chemikal Underground. They remain one of the very few bands we ever signed from a demo tape (admittedly they got in right at the start when we only received a handful every month) and went on to become one of the most influential bands this nation’s ever produced.

Describing Arab Strap’s music now almost seems like a pointless exercise: everyone’s familiar with their brand of storytelling and the singular musical vision that backed it up, but that’s exactly the point: Arab Strap blazed a trail for the kind of honest, colloquial songwriting that has become so common nowadays. We’ve had great bands as a result too: The Twilight Sad being a case in point.

The fact is that from the simplest, boldest beginnings (The Week Never Starts Round Here) to the fully formed, reflective brilliance of their swansong (The Last Romance), Arab Strap never failed to be unique. They were one of a kind and it’s not just Chemikal Underground that owes them a debt of gratitude, we all do.

This album contains no booklet.