Monday 22 February 2016

Liam Gallagher Praises New Ashcroft Track

Liam Gallagher has spoken positively of Richard Ashcroft 's new solo track following the announcement of The Verve frontman's forthcoming new album.

Ashcroft will release his fourth solo album 'These People' on May 20, today revealing his new track 'This Is How It Feels'.

Oasis singer Gallagher has since taken to Twitter to say that it's "good to hear" Ashcroft again after a six year absence. 

"New tune sounding good," Gallagher added

Richard Ashcroft Announces New Album 'These People'

The Verve frontman will release his fourth solo album 'These People' on May 20, which he describes in a cryptic statement as concerning "some personal and world events [taking] a dark turn leading to a sense of urgency and a clearing of the mind".

The album, his first since 2010's 'United Nations Of Sound', was recorded largely in Ashcroft’s basement home studio and features orchestration from Wil Malone, who worked with Richard on The Verve’s 'Northern Soul' and the ten million-selling 'Urban Hymns' as well as his 2000 debut solo album 'Alone With Everybody'.


The album tackles topics such as the war in Syria, the Arab Spring uprisings and the death of a close friend because, as Ashcroft’s statement reads, "to do nothing would be a crime in this sick nihilistic age of war". The singer also claimed he had been "experimenting with old and new equipment trying to find new textures and sounds to accompany an ancient art" and credited last year’s spate of acoustic shows in Mexico, Zurich and Bilbao for helping him realise "my lane in the chaos becomes clearer – to be a modern day troubadour". 

Ashcroft told NME: "Over the period I wrote this we’ve lived through incredible times. Highly contentious wars were going into the pot. There were grassroots movements that were then turning into semi-revolutions, there was Tahrir Square. There was everything kicking off all over the globe, people being divided. Pepper spray everywhere, tear gas… We’re in a very nihilistic age, we’re in death-ridden, world war times and I like to reflect the society we’re in but I also wanna possibly project something that gives us a sense of hope


The album's tracklisting will be:

'Out Of My Body'
'This Is How It Feels'
'They Don’t Own Me'
'Hold On'
'These People'
'Everybody Needs Somebody To Hurt'
'Pictures Of You'
'Black Lines'
'Ain’t The Future So Bright'
'Songs Of Experience'

Saturday 20 February 2016

Youth On Urban Hymns

The producer and Killing Joke bassist has produced everyone from Alien Sex Fiend to Bananarama. He recently gave an interview and talked about his time when he worked on Urban Hymns:

"There’s something very wonderful about being part of a band’s adventure as they break through. I don’t know what happened to Richard Ashcroft just before Urban Hymns: the band had been this very jamming, psychedelic act on the gigging circuit for two albums – then the songs seemed to just come to him from above, absolutely perfectly formed, with the knowledge of how to sing them. Recording his vocal was probably the easiest I’ve ever done, but the challenge then was to make the music and production reach the same level, and that took over six months. As ever with a band, there’s a lot of conflict resolution for the producer, a lot of: “Well let’s try recording both versions and see which one sounds best.” A lot of stunning material was recorded that never came out and I’m hoping that on the 20th anniversary, maybe some of it can be heard on a special edition. It was worth all of that effort though, and it ended up one of the best-sounding records I’ve ever done - due mainly to Chris Potter who engineered and mixed it. He aced that one."