Sleaford Mods collaborate with Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins for new single No Touch
Oscar winner Andrea Arnold directs unique performance video
Taken from Sleaford Mods forthcoming album The Demise Of Planet X out 16 January
Comedian Stewart Lee to host live Q&As to mark the record’s release
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.
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.
STEWART LEE Q&A
To celebrate the album’s release, Sleaford Mods will be interviewed live by the comedian, author and broadcaster Stewart Lee at Rough Trade Nottingham on 13 January 2026 and at London’s Rough Trade East on 20 January 2026. Due to demand, on both dates an afternoon and evening Q&A will take place in front of fans.
The band will also head out on a global tour in spring 2026. Their UK and Ireland tour kicks off at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom on 6 February, while they are also due to visit Europe, New Zealand and Australia, with further shows due to be announced soon.
Sleaford Mods in conversation with Stewart Lee Live
Rough Trade Nottingham on (January 13) 3pm SOLD OUT
Rough Trade Nottingham on (January 13) 6pm SOLD OUT
London Rough Trade East (20) 4pm
London Rough Trade East (20) 7pm SOLD OUT
TOUR DATES
Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom (February 6)
Manchester Academy (7)
Leeds O2 Academy (12)
Liverpool O2 Academy, (13)
Cardiff Great Hall (14)
Dublin 3Olympia Theatre (19)
Belfast Limelight (20)
Cork Cyprus Avenue (21) SOLD OUT
Oxford O2 Academy (26)
Nottingham Rock City (27) SOLD OUT
Nottingham Rock City (28)
Bristol Beacon (March 5)
Brighton Dome (6)
London O2 Academy Brixton (7)