The Waeve, composed of Graham Coxon (Blur) and Rose Elinor Dougall (The Pipettes), announced details of their second studio album, ‘City Lights’, set for release on September 20th, 2024, via Transgressive Records.
A collection of 10 songs that illustrate the evolution of their collaborative musicianship and sees the band’s sound solidified into something bolder, more expansive and self-assured. The agitated, art-rock squall of first single, and title track, ‘City Lights‘ is followed by the anthemic and expansive second single ‘You Saw‘ out now.
Graham and Rose said of the track:
“‘You Saw’ is a song about acknowledging how seemingly tiny decisions can have a seismic impact on the course of one’s life, how sometimes it feels like the way things turn out are predestined. It’s about reconciling a past version with the new version of one’s self and being grateful for how things work out. It’s built around a rhythmic string line to reflect the sense of propulsive forward motion.”
Written by Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall, and produced once again by James Ford, ‘City Lights’ features Graham and Rose on vocals, as well as keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, drums and saxophone.
To celebrate the release of ‘City Lights’, The Waevew will play three special live performances at Rough Trade, as follows: Rough Trade Liverpool on September 20th; Rough Trade Nottingham on September 21st; and Rough Trade Bristol on September 23rd.
The band will play their biggest headline show to date at Village Underground, London on October 29th later this year. Ahead of that, The Waeve will be on tour this summer, playing support on Elbow’s UK tour; as well as a number of festival dates.
List of dates below.
- 30/6 – Bristol, UK @ Bristol Sounds (supporting The Breeders)
- 21/7 – Warwick, UK @ Warwick Castle (supporting Noel Gallagher)
- 25/7 – Suffolk, UK @ Latitude Festival
- 4/8 – Essex, UK @ Audley End (supporting Elbow)
- 17/8 – Wales, UK @ Green Man Festival
- 20/9 – Liverpool, UK @ Rough Trade
- 21/9 – Nottingham, UK @Rough Trade
- 23/9 – Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade
- 29/10 – London, UK @ Village Underground
Though there’s been little over a year between the two releases, line up The Waeve’s new album ‘City Lights’ next to their 2023 debut and two very different records emerge. On Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall’s first record together, the pair conjured up an at times dreamlike world where beauty and tenderness existed under a shadow of disquiet and dread. The pair’s vocals, modular synths and Coxon’s saxophone helping to draw together shades of Broadcast, Talk Talk and 70s folk, while allowing them to get snagged on a knottier undergrowth of prog and post-punk influences.
While those elements are still present on ‘City Lights’ (witness ‘Simple Days’ beatific acoustic drift, ‘You Saw’s’ floating motorik pop or the eight-minute progressive rock adventuring within ‘Druantia’) this time around they’ve solidified into something bolder, more expansive and self-assured.
Co-produced by James Ford, it’s at times spikier and more aggressive, as on the title track’s agitated, art-rock squall or ‘Broken Boys’ Cabaret Voltaire-like racket, and swaps out the more oblique lyrical imagery of its predecessor for something more personal and direct. Where before they might have projected an emotion or a message through imagery or allegory, here it’s much clearer what, or who, they might be singing about.
“The band had an identity this time around so we had a little bit more of a framework to know how we might operate,” notes Dougall of their differing approaches. “But obviously, the circumstances were quite different…”
Back in 2020, Coxon and Dougall were adrift. When they met backstage at a charity gig at London’s Jazz Café one night, Dougall suggested they write some songs together. Formerly of retro-pop trio The Pipettes, Dougall had released her third solo album ‘A New Illusion’ the previous year and having relocated from LA back to London just as Covid struck, Coxon was in a state of flux. “I didn’t know when I was going to work again or try writing again until Rose came out and said, ‘How about we try writing together?’” says the guitarist.
“When I listen to the first album, I can hear me and Graham getting to know each other through making the record,” says Dougall today. Through the process of writing and recording together, not only did Coxon and Dougall get to know each other, they fell in love, and in August 2022 welcomed their baby daughter Eliza into the world.
“The first record was a way of escaping the constrictions of what was going on in the world,” says Dougall. “I think this one was a way of railing against the more domestic constraints that we had. That’s partly where some of the urgency of some of the songs come from.”
Domesticity isn’t always the richest of wellsprings when it comes to artistic inspiration, but from the first few bars of the opening title track, it’s clear this isn’t a record of smug contentment. The night out detailed in the song’s Berlin-era Bowie dazzle has scary monsters lurking in its shadows, anxieties always ready to rear their head.
That combination of light and shade is what makes ‘City Lights’ such a rewarding listen. For every moment of serenity – ‘I Belong To’s’ wonky pop declaration of devotion or the pastoral splendour of ‘Sunrise’, which began life as chords Coxon strummed to their daughter one morning – there’s a bump of reality, some discord and grit in the oyster.
“This album is definitely more neurotic and more grumpy – and that comes from me!” laughs Coxon. “I’ve always liked to be pretty straightforward about feelings, whether they’re ugly or beautiful, and I’ve always approached sound in the same way. I don’t always think that sound needs to be comfortable to listen to. That dynamic of putting discomfort next to something that is really lovely is something that I’ve always been interested in.”
‘Song For Eliza May’ is undoubtedly one of the album’s highlights. A mandolin strummed ode to their daughter during which a surging Fairport/Led Zeppelin III folk rock storm begins to build as Dougall starts to detail dangers and difficulties the person they’ve brought into the world might face.
For Dougall, the decision to write quite frankly about the birth of their daughter was initially a difficult one. “I was really resistant for a while to even consider referencing it,” she says. “But actually, when I realized that I could use that experience to explore bigger themes – watching what’s happening in the news, all these terrible atrocities and the world falling apart. And in tandem with that, thinking about how life evolves and how my own sense of self has developed. It became a really good vehicle for the song-writing process.”
Coxon’s guitar playing is more prominent, too. Not overtly, it’s more deconstructed to help build up layers – a Robert Fripp-like glide in ‘Moth To The Flame’s’ robotic new wave, some deft finger picking a lá Bert Jansch to really dredge up an olde worlde feel for ‘Girl Of The Endless Night’, or some blissful Floydian slide guitar to help send the album off over the horizon.
Even more so than on the tentative steps of their first album, ‘City Lights’ is a true representation of Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall. Who they are as musicians and who they are as people. As the journey from the first song to the last comes to an end, you realize that it’s also a record that tells their story, the story of where making music together has taken them.
%20announce%20‘City%20Lights’%20LP%20out%209/20%20on%20Transgressive;%20listen%20to%20‘You%20Saw’){kind=link}
%20announce%20‘City%20Lights’%20LP%20out%209/20%20on%20Transgressive;%20listen%20to%20‘You%20Saw’){kind=link}
No Comment