Yoko Ono Reunites Plastic Ono Band, New EP Due June 9, Full-Length This Fall!

76-year-old Yoko Ono continues her boomin' granny ways by reuniting her legendary joint venture with John Lennon, The Plastic Ono Band, and releasing a four-song EP entitled Don't Stop Me! exclusively on iTunes with a full-length LP, Between My Head and the Sky, due out this coming September.

The sessions happened at NYC’s Sear Sound, the same studio that used to house the old Hit Factory, where Double Fantasy was recorded. Sean Lennon both produced and acted as musical leader for a group evenly divided between Japanese avant pop musicians, and downtown Manhattan improvisers. In the Japanese contingent is Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, plus the current group led by Keigo “Cornelius” Oyamada, which includes Yuko Araki and Hirotaka Shimmy Shimizu. Cornelius and Ms. Ono performed together in Tokyo in January, and Yoko was so happy with the result she invited them over to record. In the Manhattan improv camp we find Shahzad Ismaily (guitar, bass, percussion), Erik Friedlander (cello), Michael Leonhart (trumpet, vibes), Daniel Carter (reeds) and Indigo Street (guitar) -- a singularly gifted group of instrumentalists.

As Sean says, “Yoko unleashed a deluge of new songs, writing about 16 songs in six days. The most prolific day peaking out at six songs written and tracked in an afternoon. The recording session was like a tornado of inspiration. Some of the best lyrics on the record Yoko actually 'freestyled' as if she were a lyrical divining rod.”

DON’T STOP ME! Tracklisting
The Sun Is Down! (Cornelius Mix)
Ask The Elephant!
Feel The Sand
CALLING

The Plastic Ono Band will be playing the Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London with special guests Ornette Coleman, Antony Hegarty & Mark Ronson.

No word on whether or not original POB bassist Klaus Voormann will be participating in this reunion at press time, or whether the outcome of this current variation of the group will be as amazing as the original one, who produced such envelope-pushing classics as Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band and Fly.

Plastic Ono Band with John Lennon at Toronto Rock Festival, 1969