Gruff Rhys
Saturday 10th November 2018
Selling Fast
Group Listening
At Folkestone Quarterhouse
Doors 7:00 pm
Price £18 + booking fee / £22
Mercury nominated Welsh singer-songwriter, with a career spanning twenty years of top selling albums and sold out tours solo as well as under the band Super Furry Animals – BBC 6 music favourite Gruff Rhys returns with new album Babelsberg due out on Rough Trade records.
Initially recorded in early 2016 during a three-day session that took place before producer Ali Chant’s studio was demolished, Gruff had gathered for the sessions a band consisting of his regular drummer Kliph Scurlock (ex-Flaming Lips) and multi-instrumentalists Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo) and Osian Gwynedd. The tracks were then set aside for 18 months, awaiting additional orchestral scores by Swansea-based composer Stephen McNeff as well as work from the 72-piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Over the course of Babelsberg’s forty something minutes, Gruff manages to perfectly document our troubled and troubling times with humour, grace and always addictive melody. In a career that’s spanned three decades, two languages, multiple bands, offshoots, collaborations and one boundless imagination, Babelsberg is arguably Gruff’s finest set of songs to date. And we’re willing to have that argument.
“epic soundtracks for the lost adventurer within us all.” – Mojo (4 stars)
“full of wit, originality and indelible tunes,” – The Guardian (5 stars)
Support comes from:
Group Listening
Group Listening is the new project by Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo) and Paul Jones.
Their new album (out on PRAH Recordings) Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol.1 is a collection of ambient works – from the likes of Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Euros Childs and Robert Wyatt – arranged for clarinet and piano. It is the spontaneous, beguiling culmination of this friendship.
“Canonical ambient works sublimely re-arranged” ****MOJO