David Bowie Plans "Blackstar" January 2016 Release

Classic rocker, and icon David Bowie is planning the release of a new album in January 2016, called “Blackstar,” according to reports.

Bowie put together the seven-tune collection at New York City’s Magic Shop studio with the assistance of several local jazz musicians, according to the Times.  It will be out on January 8, 2016 via ISO/Columbia.  The lead single, also called “Blackstar,” will release on November 19.  The song will be featured in “Lazarus,” a musical the Thin White Duke is co-writing with Enda Walsh.  The track is also used as the theme for UK crime series “The Last Panthers”.

The Times classifies the new LP as “an album of long, jazzy jams mixed with the kind of driving beat pioneered by Seventies German bands Can and Kraftwerk.”  The album is also said to include influences of “Gregorian chants, a soul section, various electronic beats and bleeps and Bowie’s distinctive vocals,” making for a record that a quoted Bowie insider describes as “completely bonkers.”

Bowie’s last full-length album, “The Next Day,” released in 2013.  The timing of  “Blackstar” January 8 release coincides with Bowie’s 69th birthday, January 16, 2016.