SLEAFORD MODS release new single ‘No Touch ft. Sue Tompkins’ – 2026 AU + NZ tour on sale now

Sleaford Mods release their new single ‘No Touch‘, featuring guest vocals from Sue Tompkins, singer of the influential Life Without Buildings.

The song is the latest to be taken from Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson’s forthcoming new album The Demise Of Planet X, which will be released in full on 16 January 2026 via Rough Trade Records / Remote Control Records.

Recorded at Invada Studios in Bristol, Jason and Sue traded lyrical ideas via voice note, which were then put to Andrew’s minimal beats and music box-like motif, revealing a charming and almost playful quality to the duo’s music.

“Sue sent me some crude voice notes with some ideas she’d done in her kitchen, which I thought were brilliant,” explains Williamson, who was introduced to the Life Without Buildings vocalist by Jeannette Lee and Geoff Travis at Rough Trade Records.

Now home to the Mods, in 2001, the label released the Glasgow band’s acclaimed debut album Any Other City, the home of The Leanover, a song that has subsequently enjoyed widespread organic success with users on TikTok after the singer-songwriter Beabadoobee filmed herself lip-syncing to the track in 2020.

“Sue came down to the studio in Bristol for two days to record with us. She had a cold at the time, but it added to the track,” continues Williamson. “She had all these little quirky one-liners we put at the start and end of the song. I wrote the chorus, but she expanded on that a little bit with some of her own lyrics, so she was an amazing collaborator. The song itself explores the murky exploits of drug use, the kind of exhibitionism that goes along with it.”

For Tompkins, who has staged a series of successful art shows since Life Without Buildings stopped in 2002, the opportunity to step into Sleaford Mods’ idiosyncratic world was too good to turn down.

“When I was asked to record with Sleaford Mods, I just had a sort of immediate, big urge/surge to say yes!” she declares. “Just listening to what Jason sent me initially, the feeling there was some sort of sadness or longing or intimacy or regret, just very emotive to me. So, I just responded in a way which hopefully emphasises that vulnerability.”

A video for the single was shot on location in Dartford, close to the childhood home of director Andrea Arnold. The Academy Award winner behind films including American Honey, Bird and Wuthering Heights, Arnold has brought her vision to No Touch, creating a unique performance video that blends together the band and Tompkins with a mix of extras and Kent locals.

“I had such a lovely day making the video with the Sleafords and Sue Tompkins,” explains Arnold. “The shoot reminded me of days out to Margate with my family. It was bonkers, chaotic and funny – and we got chips on the way home! I had such a good time working with them all.  Although we all do different things, we were all somehow connected. Our work and lives all intermingled. Lovely.”

For the group, the video proves a perfect encapsulation of the feelings running through the song.

“No Touch couldn’t have been captured by anyone else, Andrea Arnold fits perfectly with its soft nightmare theme,” explains Williamson. “No Touch is colourful and full of heavy realism, a kitchen sink drama. It is a song about isolation, loneliness and crushing self-harm that we all try to navigate, I suppose, under the rigid structures of conformity. Andrea took us back to her old neighbourhood, which also felt very familiar to me. The video, like her films, doesn’t end in total black out, but it trails hope too.”

Picking up on Sleaford Mods’ trademark grit, yet fashioning from it a truly romantic pearl, ‘No Touch’ is indicative of new album The Demise of Planet X, which both harnesses the pair’s usual, laser-focused anger and electro antagonism while also revealing new depths and shades.

‘Megaton‘, released as a single in aid of Ward Child earlier this year, goes off like a banger while previous single ‘The Good Life‘ utilised vocals from the Big Special and Severance actress Gwendoline Christie – making her music debut – to conjure up an electronic psychodrama.

The brooding ‘Bad Santa‘ delves into Sleaford Mods’ hip hop roots to stick Donald Trump firmly on the ‘naughty list’, while there are still many more musical presents to be unwrapped in 2026, including collaborations with Liam Bailey, rapper Snowy and Aldous Harding, making The Demise Of Planet X Fearn and Williamson’s most ambitious yet searingly coherent album to date.

The album is available in a limited, glow-in-the-dark edition, boasting a luminous LP and gatefold sleeve design, which can be purchased exclusively from the band and Rough Trade Records’ online shops, while independent record shops are selling a neon green marbled version. The Demise Of Planet X is available on black vinyl, CD and cassette, the latter coming in a fetching shade of toxic green.

Pre-order / Pre-save The Demise Of Planet X: https://sleafordmods.ffm.to/demise