I'm excited to tell you my fourth album, Storm Damage is out on January 31. The first track I'm sharing is out today. It's called Sunlight Follows The Night with a video by Rahim Moledina, who wrote and directed the video for Hendra in 2014. I am also announcing a new UK tour for early next year. (More countries to be added soon.)
The album has a fresh approach. It forgoes the twin-guitar approach of the last two, and shifts focus onto what I'm loosely calling "a future-retro trio" of upright piano, double bass and hybrid acoustic-electronic drums, all set against a backdrop of lone analogue synths, spiralling echo spins and impressionistic 'found sounds' that I adapted from online public-domain recording archives. Low's Alan Sparhawk makes a great guest appearance.
I was after a timeless-meets-modern live jam - the directness of an unadorned trio capturing the spirit; and the samples, synthetics and electronic boom capturing the psychological mood. Sometimes repeating yourself musically feels disrespectful to the sharpness of your feelings. You have to search for a new way to capture the energy.
The ten songs came out of an intense period of personal anguish and political anger. My closest half-brother died unexpectedly in 2016, only four years after my half-sister. I got stuck for a year, angry inside and angry at the political world casually detonating around me. I felt half powerless, half driven. When the songs finally emerged, some were dark, yes, but there is always room for light. Always. I just tried to put that across.
Anyway, I really hope you like it. There are links below to pre-order the album, watch the video, stream the single, and - if you pre-order the album from the official store before October 1 - you can get access to priority tickets for my UK tour before they go on sale to the general public on October 4. (You can also just go the official store and register for priority ticket access without pre-ordering too.)
Storm Damage is released on Unmade Road through Caroline International.
Photo: Antonio Olmos
