Gruff Rhys Announces new album “Sadness Sets Me Free”
October 3, 2023
Gruff Rhys’ new album, “Sadness Sets Me Free”, will be released by Rough Trade Records on 26.01.2024. This incredibly will be the 25th album he has released in his 35 year career individually, collaboratively and as a member of various bands. “Sadness Sets Me Free” is also the follow-up to 2021’s “Seeking New Gods”, his first solo top ten record. The album will be available in a range of formats including a unique Dinked edition on ‘honeycomb neo-neapolitan’ vinyl, an LP sleeve with ‘container doors’ and a bonus 7” with exclusive audio. A gatefold soft pack CD also includes a pull-out poster. Pre-order the album now.
Lead-off single “Celestial Candyfloss” is a telling four minute glimpse of the forthcoming album, revealing the heady wonders and classic pop sounds within. Soaring strings carry the sweet melodies along, anchored by just enough necessary melancholy to add emotional ballast. The eye-popping video was created by long-time collaborator Mark James and compliments the scope and style of the song on a galactic scale. Watch the video for “Celestial Candyfloss”.
“Celestial Candyfloss” is, Gruff says, “an attempted pocket symphony about the cosmic lengths that people will travel in the pursuit of love and acceptance. Mark James has brought the Sadness Sets Me Free album cover to life & managed to place me watching TV interference in a shipping container that’s lost in space. For what is apparently the 25th album I’ve had a hand in writing I’ve reverted to a rich seam of inspiration relating to shedding some light on sadness and the general terror of cosmic loneliness.”
And so it was that Gruff and his band – Osian Gwynedd (piano), Huw V Williams (double bass) and former Flaming Lips drummer turned Super Furry Animals archivist Kliph Scurlock (drums) piled into a van driven by the late, legendary tour manager “Dr” Kiko Loiacono and raced from Dunkirk, where they had just played the final show of a tour of Spain and France, to the outskirts of Paris in the early hours of a March morning in 2022. There, in La Frette Studios, a recording facility installed in a 19th-century house, Gruff and his road-hardened group tracked “Sadness Sets Me Free” in just three days. Backing vocals were added along the way by Kate Stables from This Is The Kit along with additional strings and orchestration and it was mixed between Marseille and Cardiff. What finally emerged from these intense bouts of cross-continental activity was Gruff’s most accomplished and beautiful record to date.
In a career that has taken him from the slate-mining towns of north-west Wales, down to the expat communities of Patagonia, up to the Mandan tribe of the Great Plains of North America and across to the Tuareg rock groups of the Saharan Desert, Gruff Rhys, one of Britain’s most beloved and successful singer-songwriters, has always been willing to follow an opportunity, wherever it may lead him. “At this point I quite like working with serendipity,” he says. “Not in a cosmic way, [but] I try and leave things open to chance encounters and chance geography. As I’m around 25 albums in I’m always looking for ways to make a different-sounding record”
Pre-Order “Sadness Sets Me Free”
Album Track Listing
Sadness Sets Me Free
Bad Friend
Celestial Candyfloss
Silver Lining (lead balloons)
On The Far Side of the Dollar
They Sold My Home to Build a skyscraper
Peace Signs
Cover up the Cover up
I Tended My Resignation
I’ll Keep Singing
Tour Dates
October 12th – Union Pool show and USA Tour w/ This Is The Kit
October 27-29th – Caernarfon Castle (partially live)
Nov 5th – Mutations Festival, Brighton
Nov 30th – UK Warm Up
Dec 1st – Glasgow Barrowlands w/ The Coral
Dec 2nd – Liverpool Olympia w/ The Coral
26th – 1st Feb – UK Instore Tour
2nd Feb – Aberystwyth, Arts Centre
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Featured Release
Gruff Rhys
Gruff Rhys - Sadness Sets me Free
26 January 2024
LPE / LP / CD / Digital
Buy This release is not available from Rough Trade in your country