"Summer Ghosts" Named "Song You Need To Know" by Rolling Stone
Touring The US Spring with His "Future-Retro Trio"
Today, musician-writer-DJ Ben Watt released his new album Storm Damage via Unmade Road / Caroline International. The follow-up to the award-winning Hendra and Fever Dream, it is released on a wave of acclaim. The Associated Press said, "Even close to four decades since the start of his career, Storm Damage is a cornerstone of Watt’s catalog, a collection to be enduringly recognized."
Listen to Storm Damage:
The Sunday Times called it "Beautiful and nuanced music-making," while Uncut, in a 9/10 review, called it "Enthralling and adventurous." Yesterday, Rolling Stone named his single "Summer Ghosts" a "Song You Need To Know."
Across four decades Watt has maintained a committed forward-looking course, from the ardent echo-drenched folk of his early solo work with Robert Wyatt, through seventeen years in the best- selling duo Everything But The Girl with Tracey Thorn, before ten at the helm of his smart electronic label Buzzin' Fly, and since 2014 a revitalised return to solo singer-songwriting and writing. Sonically adventurous, lyrically detailed and engaged, Storm Damage is a personal journey through anxiety and change cut through with an insistent defiance. "I needed a fresh approach," says Watt. "The songs came out of an intense period of personal anguish and political anger." Watt captures the mood with "a future-retro trio" of upright piano, double bass and hybrid acoustic-electronic drums, set against a half-lit backdrop of lone analogue synths, spiralling echo spins and impressionistic 'found sounds' adapted from online public-domain recording archives. Watt will tour the the US for the first time is almost three years this spring and will make stops in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and more. Find a full list of dates below or at benwatt.com. Tour Dates: 3/31: Washington, D.C. - Union Stage 4/2: New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge 4/3: Boston, MA - City Winery 4/4: Hudson, NY - Club Helsinki 4/5: Toronto, ON - Rivoli 4/7: Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark 4/8: Indianapolis, IN - Lo-Fi Lounge 4/9: Evanston, IL - Space 4/10: Milwaukee, WI - The Back Room at Colectivo 4/11: Minneapolis, MN - The Dakota 4/14: Seattle, WA - The Triple Door 4/15: Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios 4/17: San Francisco, CA - The Chapel 4/18: Los Angeles, CA - Largo