Missy Higgins drops new single, announces album release date, gets added to Ed Sheeran tour

Image: Cybele Malinowski

Missy Higgins has embarked on a hive of musical activity.

This morning she dropped a new single, and set a release date for her album.

Frontier Touring also announced she will be opening act on Ed Sheeran epic stadium tour, which kicks off in a matter of weeks.

“I’m very happy about [it] as I’m a long-time fan of her music,” Sheeran said.

According to Frontier, the 18 Australian and New Zealand shows have sold over 950,000 tickets – a new record for amount of tickets sold on a single tour and which broke Dire Straits’ record set in 1986.

The single ‘Futon Couch’ recalls the meeting with her future husband playwright Dan Lee; and Higgins says she wanted it as the lead-off single because it’s “the happiest song on the record.”

She explains, “It’s not often I write a straight-out, ‘fuck it I love you’ song.

“It is the story of me meeting my husband in Broome, Western Australia.

“He was my good friend’s housemate and one day he walked into the living room where I was waiting for my friend.

“I sat on the futon couch making small-talk with him while he did the dishes and I thought: “where did THIS guy come from and why is he so lovely and how can I surreptitiously arrange to hang out with him more?”

“After that day, I popped round for tea at my friend’s house way more often.

“We fell in love. We sang “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” together at our friend’s wedding the following week and a few years later, I walked down the aisle towards him.

“This single tracks the beginning of our relationship and follows it into an unknown future.”

Higgins’ fifth album Solastalgia, her first record of original songs in six years, is slated for a May release.

Her previous albums have sold 1 million units and gained her 24 ARIA nominations including five as Best Female Artist.

Experimenting with new electronica-tinged ground, Solastalgia was made over two years with a group of new collaborators, particularly co-producer Pip Norman (TZU, Troye Sivan, Dan Sultan) and New York based mixer John O’Mahony (Vance Joy, Coldplay, Metric).

“There’s so much inspiring music being made out there in people’s bedrooms on their computers”, says the singer-songwriter.

“I wanted to see what sounds and beats we could conjure out of the electronic ether, and then try to wrap some stories and traditional instruments around them.

“It’s a huge journey, this album.”

Lyrically it covers mass shootings in the US, the apocalypse, aliens and climate change – showing a greater awareness of the frailty of human life after the birth of her son Samuel in 2015.

Last year she revealed, “During the making of this album I was reading a lot of post-apocalyptic literature, I got really obsessed with it, especially climate apocalyptic literature.”

The Sheeran dates begin on Friday March 2 in Perth.

They take in two Perth Stadium shows, one Adelaide Oval, four Melbourne Etihad Stadiums, three ANZ Stadiums and two Brisbane Suncorp Stadiums which wind up on March 21.

In between, Higgins also plays the Blue Mountains Music Festival in Katoomba on Sunday March 18 and By The C on Cottesloe Beach WA on Sunday April 8.