Madonna Confirms Release Date For ‘Confessions II’ Album: ‘To Rave Is an Art’

Madonna is officially headed back to the dance floor. After months of teasing, the singer confirmed on Wednesday morning (April 15) that her eagerly anticipated sequel (she calls it a “continuation”) to her 2005 electropop dance classic, Confession On a Dancefloor is due out on July 3 on Warner Records.

She previewed the LP, dubbed Confessions II, in a breathless, trancey visualizer set to a thrumming beat in which she previewed the opening track “I Feel So Free.” The strobe-heavy visual revealed the shorthand name for the project — COADF2 — and featured feathery voice-over from the singer in which she says, “Thanks for coming/ Sometimes I like to just hide in the shadows/ Create a new persona/ A different identity/ I can be whoever I want to be.”

Over bubbling synths and a spare, clicking beat Madonna sways in blurry, colorful shadow behind the projected lyrics about getting lost in the rhythm as she adds, “Honestly, I wish I could be like other people/ And just not care/ But out here/ On the dance floor/ I feel so free,” as the beat starts to pick up and a man’s voice adds, “Oh, by the way, it all started like this” before the music fades and the screen goes to black.

In a statement, Madonna summed up the new album by quoting the first few lines of the song “One Step Away,” saying, “People think that dance music is superficial, but they’ve got it all wrong. The dance floor is not just a place, it’s a threshold: A ritualistic space where movement replaces language.” She added that when she re-teamed with the original LP’s producer, Stuart Price, on the new album they created a working manifesto.

It reads: “We must dance, celebrate, and pray with our bodies. These are things that we’ve been doing for thousands of years — they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritualistic space. It’s a place where you connect — with your wounds, with your fragility. To rave is an art. It’s about pushing your limits and connecting to a community of like-minded people. Sound, light, and vibration Reshape our perceptions Pulling us into a trancelike state. The repetition of the bass, we don’t just hear it but we feel it. Altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time.“

The details about Madonna’s 15th studio album, the follow-up to 2019’s Madame X, come after the singer teased the news on Tuesday (April 14) with a short instrumental snippet, a provocative image of her legs astride a speaker and a clean wipe of her Instagram feed.

The LP will mark Madonna’s return to her original label home, Warner Records, after nearly two decades away. She began getting fans amped up for her homecoming in November with the release of Confessions on a Dance Floor Twenty Years Edition, an expanded version of the 2005 album that featured such hits as “Hung Up,” “Sorry” and “Get Together.”

Check out the Confessions II visualizer below.

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.