VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ahead of the release of his forthcoming solo album Turn The Car Around, due January 13th 2023 via Hot Fruit Recordings / Virgin Music, Gaz Coombes has released his latest new single “Long Live The Strange” and accompanying music video.
Recently Gaz announced a UK/EU headline tour for 2023 and also debuted music from the new album to a packed audience at London’s intimate Lafayette, a first taste of the masterfully written and recorded songs contained within, and a timely reminder of why Coombes remains one of the UK’s most enduring and gifted songwriters.
Gaz explains “This song was written as a celebration of the weird and wonderful and as a reminder to embrace that at all times.” The single stands as an ode to how music has the power to bring people together. He wrote it after taking his daughter Tiger to see Cavetown in Oxford in 2020. “The show had a big impact on me,” he recalls.
“It was what live performance is all about, connecting with an audience that consists of anybody and everybody who wants to be part of it, it’s fully inclusive and I found that quite powerful.” It was heartening to Coombes to discover, 30 years after he listened to Inspiral Carpets and Pixies and The Wedding Present and felt like he was part of a gang, there was still a place where the strange ones go. “It’s obviously strange in the nicest sense of the word,” he adds.
“Long Live the Strange” is accompanied by a new video directed by Niall Trask. Playfully weaving in the songs’ themes of inclusion and acceptance, the beautifully shot video sees Gaz enlisting hundreds of friends to create something delightfully idiosyncratic to accompany this ode to the outsiders.
Discussing the video, Trask playfully jokes “When I was brought onto the project, Gaz had already been living amongst the community of mannequins for several months. His knowledge of them allowed me to have no issues directing them nor overcome the language barrier. The whole process was fascinating and certainly a culture shock; coming from South London, I found the silence and stillness almost deafening. It’s certainly one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had as a filmmaker.”
Written and recorded in his gloriously ramshackle Oxfordshire outhouse Studio, with Turn The Car Around (13th January) Gaz has emerged with the best work of his illustrious career. It’s an album that both taps into the sonic palettes and lyrical themes of its predecessors and marks the third and final part of a trilogy of records alongside 2015’s Mercury and Ivor Novello nominated sophomore album Matador and 2018’s World’s Strongest Man. At the same time, it carves a bold new way forwards. “There’s a lot of subject matter in there that I’ve played with and maybe not managed to see through in the past. I’ve evolved,” Gaz adds.
As he celebrates 10 years of his lauded solo career, riding the crest of the Supergrass reunion wave and looking ahead to a bold new album release in Turn The Car Around, Gaz Coombes will tour Europe and the UK on the headline dates below through March and April 2023.
