Gruff Rhys announces 'Babelsberg' (watch the "Frontier Man" video)
Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys will release new solo album, Babelsberg, on on June 8 via Rough Trade. (His last solo album was 2014’s American Interior.) Gruff made the album with former Flaming Lips drummer and frequent collaborator Kliph Scurlock, and multi-instrumentalists Stephen Black (aka Sweet Baboo) and Osian Gwynedd, plus the 72-piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Says Gruff of the album’s title:
I’d made a note of the word Babelsberg 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.
You can watch the video for first single and lead track “Frontier Man” which also features Kliph. Gruff talks about it here:
Ah! Greetings my friends, welcome to my new music video shot especially for the song “Frontier Man,” 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. Discarded plastics will destroy the earth and may well have destroyed this video clip but rest assured, as predictable as it may be – it was all just a daydream. Starring Kliph Scurlock at the beginning as ‘Man Throws Bottle’.
Watch that below.
Gruff has a few live shows lined up this summer in the UK, and all of them are will a full orchestra. All dates are listed below.
Gruff Rhys – Babelsberg tracklist:
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
Gruff Rhys — 2018 Tour Dates
June 10th – Millennium Centre, Cardiff (with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales)
September 12th – Barbican, London (with the London Contemporary Orchestra)
September 16th – RNCM Concert Hall, Manchester (with the RNCM Orchestra)
