Gruff Rhys has announced details of his fifth solo album, Babelsberg which comes out on the 8th June 2018 through Rough Trade Records.
Babelsberg features orchestral scores by Swansea-based composer Stephen McNeff and the work of the 72 piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Watch Gruff being a model recylcer in the video for the album’s western tinged opening track, ‘Frontier Man’ below. Gruff explains: “It was shot in Cardiff, Wales and the Cardiff of the imagination. Watch me as I go in search of a bin through the deepest recesses, and frozen tundra of my mind. Yes, you heard right.”
Of ‘Babelsberg’, Gruff says: “I’d made a note of the name after driving past a sign when I was on tour in 2014. Cut to a few years later and the studio where I recorded the album was being knocked down just a week after I finished to make way for a ‘luxury’ apartment development. I was looking for a name that evoked the Tower of Babel – people building towers to reach an idea of heaven (but maybe creating a kind of hell – I’m an atheist by the way!) In any case I had written “Babelsberg” down and when I listened to the songs together, it finally made sense why I’d done that.”
‘Babelsberg’ Tracklisting:
1. Frontier Man
2. The Club
3. Oh Dear!
4. Limited Edition Hearts
5. Take That Call
6. Drones in the City
7. Negative Vibes
8. Same Old Song
9. Architecture of Amnesia
10. Selfies in the Sunset
To celebrate the release, Gruff will be playing the following shows with full orchestras backing him and his band:
10th June – Cardiff Millenium Centre, Wales, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (tickets on sale now)
12th September – Barbican, London, with the London Contemporary Orchestra (tickets on sale Friday 20th April)
16th September – RNCM Concert Hall, Manchester with the Piccadilly Symphony Orchestra (tickets on sale Friday 20th April)
