EXPONENT of beautiful baroque pop Andy Shauf has unveiled a 26-date tour of Europe and the UK in support of his excellent 2020 album The Neon Skyline, a lovely addition to his canon which of course, what with viruses and all, he hasn’t as yet been able to bring across the Atlantic. You’ll find those dates down below.
He’s also shared a video for one of the highlights of an album stuffed with ’em, “Living Room”; and you can watch that down below, too.
The song tackles how an innocent enquiry after the child of a friend spirals out into concerns about death, reincarnation and living out the mistakes of our parents.
Director Anne Douris visualizes this generational fear in its video and says: “This is a story about growing up lonely. In particular, it’s about how wage labour – the business of having to work to survive – shapes our lives from the moment we are born.
“I think we mistake childhood as being a time of ‘freedom’, when actually our lives are entangled in the struggle of working adults; so I wanted to weave together these scenes of childhood solitude, foggy recollections of being left alone in our empty house, where playfulness and imagination are tainted by fear. Fear of the dark, fear of abandonment, fear of loss.
“Visually inspired by the NFB cartoons I devoured as a kid, I wanted it to feel like an old, worn-out memory, discoloured by time and distorted each time it’s remembered. Like these memories that we don’t share with anyone else are more vulnerable – ephemeral to the point of disintegrating.”
“I mean how hard is it / To give a shit, to give a shit, to give a shit?” spits Andy as the tale darkens and climax in gentle acoustic guitars and woodwind.
Andy‘s tour dates are as follows; for tickets and more details visit Andy’s website, here.
Monday, April 18th, 2022, Bad Bonn, Düdingen, Switzerland;
Wednesday, April 20th, Le Krakatoa, Mérignac, France;
Thursday, April 21st, Trianon Paris;
Friday, April 22nd, Le 106, Rouen;
Saturday, April 23rd, Kulturfabrik, Esch-Sur-Alzette, Luxembourg;
Sunday, April 24th, Tivoli Vredenburg, Utrecht;
Monday, April 25th, Rotown, Rotterdam;
Tuesday, April 26th, Doomroosje, Nijmegen;
Thursday, April 28th, Loppen, Copenhagen;
Friday, April 29th, Ingensteds, Oslo;
Saturday, April 30th, Nalen Klubb, Stockholm;
Monday, May 2nd, Knust, Hamburg;
Tuesday, May 3rd, Silent Green, Berlin;
Thursday, May 5th, Les Nuits Botanique Festival, Bruxelles;
Friday, May 6th, Luxor, Cologne;
Saturday, May 7th, Little Waves Festival, Genk;
Monday, May 9th, The Castle & Falcon, Birmingham;
Tuesday, May 10th, Summerhall, Edinburgh;
Wednesday, May 11th, Drygate, Glasgow;
Thursday, May 12th, Gorilla, Manchester;
Friday, May 13th, Brudenell Social Club, Leeds;
Saturday, May 14th, Fiddlers, Bristol;
Sunday, May 15th, Chalk, Brighton;
Monday, May 16th, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London;
Wednesday, May 18th, Empire, Belfast, and
Thursday, May 19th, Button Factory, Dublin.
Andy Shauf’s The Neon Skyline is available now from ANTI- digitally, on on CD and vinyl; you can buy a copy over at his Bandcamp page (and his excellent back catalogue as well.)
Connect with Andy online at his website and on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
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