Will Varley has released new track “Live Again” and announced UK live shows to follow the release of his new album The Hole Around My Head. The album, out October 15 and available to pre-order, is the first to be released on Yellow Cake, a new record label and artist protection entity set up by record producer Cameron McVey, internationally renowned for his work with Massive Attack, Portishead, Sugababes, and his wife Neneh Cherry.
Varley will perform a small run of intimate headline shows following the album’s release, including London’s Union Chapel on November 5. Tickets on sale this Friday August 27 from www.willvarley.com, ticket pre-sale available now.
“Live Again is about the rhythms our lives take on, the ebb and flow of anxiety and relief,” Comments Varley of the desolately beautiful new track. “The way we look back over fragments of the past, the gradual decay of memory and the desire to go back and experience certain moments again and again.”
“Live Again” follows the album’s rousing lead single “Pushing Against Us”. The Hole Around My Head is the follow-up to 2018’s The Spirit Of Minnie, which was produced by McVey and reached number two in the iTunes Singer Songwriter charts in the UK, number three in Germany and made the top 30 in the US.
Varley self-produced the new album over the winter in his makeshift studio on the Kent coast, playing most of the instruments himself. Having never produced an album before, he had McVey on hand to offer encouragement and advice via video call from his family spread deep in the Swedish wilderness.
“I would work through the night, and often I felt like the only person awake in the whole town,” says Varley. “I would send the sessions to Cam in the early hours of the morning, and he’d give me feedback on them the next day.”
“Will’s the Springsteen of his generation to my ears and sensibilities,” comments McVey. “He’s not really a f**king folk singer is he?! This new record is more of an affirmation than a conscious change of direction. The songs are raw and the production almost painfully too honest at times. Will plays and sings like his studio is on fire and he has to finish before it burns to the ground.”
The album was mastered by iconic mastering engineer Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, Tom Waits, Prince), following up on an offer to master Varley’s next record after the singer songwriter turned up at his house in LA with some fried chicken in early 2020.
November 7 Manchester – Night & Day Cafe
Tickets on sale this Friday August 27 from www.willvarley.com,
