Without any further ado, we are delighted to go live with the pre-orders for Stages TODAY. Double vinyl, CD digipak, download – take yr pick. We’ll be going live with more tracks from the record in the coming weeks so hold yer horses. Big love from me and Al. Txxx
https://chordorchard.bandcamp.com/album/stages
***New album STAGES out Jan 10th 2020 + ESP #6***
We appreciate this has been a long time coming, but we needed to get this right, and we are now there. We can confirm today that our 5th record, STAGES, will be available January 10th 2020 on CD/LP/download via Chord Orchard, with pre-orders opening on October 12th this year. Beyond this new record we are also already deep into preparing the follow-up, a ‘sister’ album of sorts – AVENUE DOT. We will follow up both releases with as many shows as we can financially and logistically manage. In the meantime we are delighted to share a first track from the new record – Roles Reversed – our first new music since 2013, no less. Feels surreal and wonderful to finally have some new music for you lovely folks – we hope you love it as much as we do. ❤ https://chordorchard.bandcamp.com
Scroll on down for the full scoop from Al…
ESPx
“Several years after our mother passed away, I sat down one day and wrote the rough shape of an album; a concept album, as it were. I took on the multiple perspectives of the experience of death and grief – trying to imagine my mother’s feelings and how she experienced both her life and her death, as well as how others in the family may have felt and reacted, as well as my own sense of overcoming this grief.
Having spent some time working out the songs with a new group of musicians, culminating in recording (and completely shelving) the project, around a year or so ago we decided to bring this project back from retirement and re-tool it, re-imagine it, and re-record it. Thus, we present ESP #5 – Stages – our personal tribute to our mother, our family, and ourselves.
Hopefully, this personal vision and interrogation of grief may provide others with a roadmap of sorts to navigate these deep, dark, universal feelings – not in a depressive, maudlin manner, but rather with an honest, reflective, and ameliorating tone. As Kelly Jones once sang: you gotta go there to come back.
More recently, I once again sat down and visualised the shape of an album… one song written in reaction to the last, and so on… the theme of this collection of songs became a roadmap for navigating one’s own depression and negative feelings towards oneself. Essentially, a record about mental wellbeing, positive attitude, and, if you will permit the term: self-love! These songs constitute a second, ‘sister’ album: Avenue Dot, which will also be release in the early part of 2020.
14 songs in total.
Written and sung by myself, produced and recorded by Thomas, these albums are truly collaborative and represent a new period in our output, with my writing having been less than forthcoming in recent years – I have now hit a peak, I hope. I am extremely proud of these pieces of work, both in their honesty and their construction. It is a strange feeling to be a fan of one’s work and genuinely satisfied and engaged with it: often in the past, I have felt I have ‘got away’ with things, or not been able to fully realise my ideas. Not so here.
The records are entirely self-produced, with mixing by our longtime collaborator Matthew Twaites. I couldn’t be prouder of how ’Stages’ sounds, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. I cannot express my gratitude to my brother for helping me realise my ideas and for galvanising this project into what it has become.
I cannot wait to share this new work with our audience and the wider world. We both hope that people will enjoy this work, and fall in love with it as we have, and I personally hope that if people are suffering from feelings of grief, of loss, of self-doubt, of depression, that these works can offer some solace, some relief, some respite, some distraction, some healing, some positivity; some light in all that darkness out there.
Thank you for your support and for hanging with us all this time, and I hope you will enjoy this new era of the group.
Alex White
xxxx”
With Rose Elinor Dougall at Oslo, Hackney
With Rose Elinor Dougall at Rough Trade East
With Rose Elinor Dougall at Shipwright’s Yard, Brighton
ESP interviews are rarer than hen’s teeth these days, but the chaps at L’Ecran du Son asked very nicely, and so we agreed to chat for a few minutes – possibly our first filmed interview together in over a decade. This was actually really nice – the questions aren’t silly and it was a pleasure to be asked to sing a few bars at the end too. All interviews should end like that. Enjoy. ❤
Thomas x
Fallais, 3rd May
Le Havre, 1st May
From: https://facebook.com/electricsoftparade
Mere days until The Brexit Outreach Tour 2019 commences and we smash through borders real and imaginary to bring you North-Europeans hour upon hour of Sunshine Pop from the South Coast™. We cannot wait. If there’s any songs people would desperately like the group to play, please do speak now, as we have some final rehearsals in the coming days and we’d like you all to be happy campers. Where ticket links/reservations are available, I’ve added below. This is gonna be so special, especially in these undoubtedly somewhat dark times. Let’s make some beautiful new memories. ❤
Thomas x
May 1st, Le Havre: https://www.facebook.com/events/284036652492907/
May 2nd, Rouen: https://www.mouvinormandie.fr/Manifestation/rouen/hard-rock-m%C3%A9tal/the-electric-soft-parade-yallinn/2238948
May 3rd, Fallais: https://www.facebook.com/events/256174578607872/
May 4th, Lesquin: https://www.facebook.com/events/366558567479759/
May 5th, Arthez-de-Bearn: https://www.facebook.com/lepingouinalternatif/
