"A love letter to the people of South London" - The FADER

"We love this new sound" - i-D

"Superb - song of the summer" - The Guardian

This Friday Childhood release their highly-anticipated second album Universal High via Marathon Artists.

Today they release the lo-fi-styled video for "Cameo". Combining a Seventies, soul-inspired performance shot by Ashley Rommelrath, with a narrative following an enigmatic degenerate figure amidst his meandering urban expedition, captured by director Katia Ganfield.

You can listen to three songs from Universal High online now ("Nothing Ever Seems Right," "Californian Light" and "Cameo") or receive each as a download when you pre-order the album.

Recorded at Maze Studios, Atlanta across the summer of 2016 where the band decamped for a month, it was produced by the legendary Ben H Allen III (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, Deerhunter) who struck up quite the creative partnership with ringleader Ben Romans-Hopscraft. You could be forgiven for branding 'Universal High' a rebirth. In places almost unrecognizable from the dub-charged psychedelic indie of their debut, the new sound swells from the southern streets in which it came to life, caked in the Seventies soul of The Isley Brothers, Curtis Mayfield and Shuggie Otis.

Ben Romans-Hopcraft says, "Universal High represents many things to us as a band. It signifies change, both musically and mentally whilst also revisiting influences that confounded our interest in music in the first place. What I think is noticeable is the direct nature of the songs and its influences. Being surrounded by soul music, classic pop songs and music with any form of groove all my life, these influences began to speak for themselves within these new songs we were writing".

Since the first album, Ben's evolved into something of an auteur, with numerous collaborations under his belt as both a producer, recurrently alongside new regular comrade Sean Lennon, as well as numerous teamings with Fat White Family's Saul Aamczeski as part of both Warmduscher and Insecure Men.

22nd July - Hyeres Midi Festival 2017, France

29th July - Port Eliot Festival, Cornwall

10th August - Leefest The Neverland, Tonbridge

11th August - Ventor International Festival, Isle of Wight

12th August - Oyafestivalen, Oslo

20-23rd September - Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg

21st October - Simple Things Festival, Bristol

1st to 5th November - Reykjavik Iceland Airwaves Iceland

28th November - Scala, London