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SOLOMON GREY RELEASE SELF-TITLED DEBUT ALBUM – OUT NOW
REVEAL NEW VIDEO FOR SINGLE “SWEET 84”
ON TOUR WITH ABOVE & BEYOND MAY 2016
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“Solomon Grey have long been on our radar, but with the upcoming release of their glorious full length LP, it would be a total travesty for them not be on everyone’s playlists soon.”
Notion
“Solomon Grey deserve to be in the limelight, this band is just brilliant.” The Line Of Best Fit
“The duo find the perfect balance of fusing together beauty and gloom to create something brilliant and fresh.” Earmilk
“Delicate, Layered & Captivating.” Shortlist
Solomon Grey have just released their debut self-titled album, out now on Astralwerks Records [iTunes]. Listen to the album HERE. In support of the release, the London duo (Joe Wilson and Tom Kingston) have also announced a North American Spring tour with Above & Beyond. Full tour dates below. Tickets are on sale now and available HERE.
Although predominately an electronic album, Solomon Grey is a rich and diverse body of work which showcases the pair’s expansive and cinematic production skills. Echoes of dark ’80s pop, soul, and folk songs reside comfortably amongst layered synths, sweeping strings, and waterfalls of gentle pianos led by Wilson’s attention grabbing vocals.
Solomon Grey also released a new video for the album’s first single, “Sweet 84.” Watch HERE. The video, directed by Junior Martinez, takes a surreal look at an innocent ’80s childhood, where a child playing with her toys starts to make sense of the world. The band says of making the video:
“When we were writing ‘Sweet 84’ we got obsessed with our childhoods and the memories we still held onto. Our parents watching the news, being held up on their shoulders, the perspective of a child’s point of view, falling asleep in the back of the car and being carried into bed while sleeping, becoming aware of the wider world and its enormity. It became a mish mash of this weird unnerving experience we were reliving through ‘Sweet 84’ and director Junior Martinez just ran with it. He has done a great job of bringing to life what was in our heads when we wrote. It mirrors a lot of what our own children’s experiences must be now, and what they must be taking in from the world around them.”
Alongside “Sweet 84,” stand-out tracks range the more angular sounding “Electric Baby” to the more M83 soundscape inspired “Broken Light,” to the melancholy multi-vocal layered folk sounding song “Choir To the World” which layers and builds to a crescendo of sublime strings and synths. In their own words:
“We wanted to create something with the breadth of emotion and depth that some of our favourite albums encompass. The music and songs just naturally became more and more layered the more we worked on them and bit by bit we learnt how to self-produce and carve out the sound we wanted. The album touches on a lot of things but put together the whole thing ended up reflecting our journey from a very dark place and the metamorphoses we went through over the years of writing and travelling, trying to get it finished.”
Solomon Grey first came to public attention at the tail end of 2012, when their track “Firechild” appeared online to a great reaction and resulted in their first record deal with Black Butter Records. Their debut single “Gen V” saw Solomon Grey hailed one of Britain’s most exciting new electronic acts with support from Radio 1 and BBC6 Music alongside The Line Of Best Fit, Wonderland & Hunger.
The release of debut single “Gen V” was supposed to begin the slow build to Solomon Grey’s debut ‘pop’ album, but they don’t do things by convention and their soundtrack work put paid to those plans. First the Irish Tourist Board hired them to soundtrack a film of The Wild Atlantic Way, a 2500km continuous coast road up the west coast of Ireland. Next, they recorded the soundtrack for a BFI-funded film called Gozo, due for release in 2016. Then came The Casual Vacancy call from the BBC/HBO with the music released as part of a collection of their work to date on their ‘Selected Works Compilation.’
Constantly creating, Solomon Grey are more of a sonic brand than a band carving out a niche alongside other contemporary heavyweight composers like Nils Frahms and Johan Johansson. Most recently their work can be heard on the trailer for Palm D’Or winner Dheepan by esteemed director Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone, A Prophet): watch HERE.
TOUR DATES w/ ABOVE & BEYOND MAY 2016
May 11 – Chicago Theatre, Chicago
May 12 – Chicago Theatre, Chicago
May 14 – Massey Hall, Toronto
May 15 – Massey Hall, Toronto
May 17 – The Wang, Boston
May 20 – Beacon Theatre, New York
May 21 – Beacon Theatre, New York
May 22 – Beacon Theatre, New York
May 26 – Greek Theatre, Berkeley
May 27 – Greek Theatre, Berkeley
May 28 – Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles
May 30 – School Night, Bardot, Los Angeles *
* headline show
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