Gruff Rhys performing with the Super Furry Animals @ the London Roundhouse (Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever
Babelsberg will be Gruff Rhys‘ first record for Rough Trade since 2007’s Candylion when it is released on June 8th.
More immediately following the ambitious multimedia scope of American Interior, it started life through recording sessions in early 2016 over the course of just three days with producer Ali Chant in his soon-to-be=demolished studio. Also involved were regular drummer Kliph Scurlock and multi-instrumentalists Stephen Black and Osian Gwynedd.
Patience was a virtue for the next eighteen months as Rhys awaited accompanying scores by the composer Stephen McNeff with the 72-piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
“I’d made a note of the name after driving past a sign when I was on tour in 2014,” Rhys remembers. “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.”
Babelsberg tracklist:
Frontier Man
The Club
Oh Dear!
Limited Edition Hearts
Take That Call
Drones in the City
Negative Vibes
Same Old Song
Architecture of Amnesia
Selfies in the Sunset