Carnival of Souls is Pere Ubu's 18th album over a forty year career that has seen them break rules, confuse and continue to divide music critics globally. Carnival of Souls was conceived in the midst of a grueling tour schedule that accompanied the release of Lady from Shanghai. The band performed a live underscore for a screening of the 1962 movie that gives the new album its name at the 2013 East End Film Festival in London. A 'shock troops' version of the band went on the road in the UK and Europe to evolve those ideas into songs, improvising entirely new sets of music around core themes each night. On the road, the frayed nerves of the group meant they would switch from a whisper to a scream at any given moment, provoking each other, egging each other on and occasionally erupting as if in violent rebuke, before moments of gentle, bittersweet reprieve - an extraordinary work resulted.