David Bowie's 'Blackstar' single and video preview new album

David Bowie has released a new single, '★' (Blackstar), a ten-minute track that anticipates his upcoming album of the same name, set for release on January 8, 2016, his 69th birthday. The album was recorded between January and May 2015 with New York jazz musicians, as revealed by longtime producer Tony Visconti in an interview with Mojo magazine. Visconti describes the project as radically new in spirit and form, with the jazz musicians bringing a 'refreshing' approach to rock. The single is complex, melancholic, tormented, and syncopated, blending free jazz, electronics, soul, post-rock, and dark atmospheres. The accompanying video, directed by Johan Renck (known for the TV series 'The Last Panthers'), is a short film featuring Bowie blindfolded, moving through decadent scenes of ruined cities, jewel-encrusted skulls, lunar landscapes, and esoteric rituals, evoking a post-apocalyptic world under a black sun. The track was originally created as the theme song for the crime drama 'The Last Panthers'. This marks Bowie's first new music in three years, following his 2013 album 'The Next Day'.