Newcastle-based Richard Dawson has announced the release of his eighth album, entitled Peasant, set for 2 June.It will be accompanied by a full UK tour, the musician’s first with a full live band, including long-time collaborators violinist Angharad Davies plus Johnny Hedley and Matt Baty of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. Full dates are below.
Following the acclaim of 2014’s triumphantly ambitious Nothing Important, Peasant is an album that confronts themes of raw humanity and the trials of survival as an individual and as a family in a world that is relentlessly unmerciful. Weaving the record’s lyrical themes through the narrative backdrop of the pre-mediaeval North Eastern kingdom of Bryneich, Dawson beguilingly presents the circular trajectory of history, giving the conveyed messages an even greater relevance, and a startling heft.
In a recent interview with tQ – which can be read here – Dawson explained the lyrical basis of Peasant, particularly the historical context of the Roman Empire’s withdrawal from Britain and the ways society rebuilt itself afterwards. He said: "After the withdrawal, things reverted back to this almost tribal state of affairs, because the whole country was in great flux, and that seemed like a very interesting time. How did people manage to retain some honour, or look after their families when all around them the systems are in a great state of flux?"
Peasant sees Dawson championing and expanding on a sound that he has been honing since his 2007 debut Richard Dawson Sings Songs and Plays Guitar. Flurrying guitars, hearty vocal delivery and instrumental and percussive stylings that dig far and deep into the English folk-tradition.
In ‘Ogre’, which you can check out above, there is a brightness shining through the darkness of its subject matter. Across its movements, Dawson’s impassioned vocals and lithe guitar work carry the choral and percussive bursts to a joyous climax that will fill leave your chest fluttering and craving more.
Speaking about the track’s video, Dawson explains: "A crack team of physicists, leather-workers, synchronised swimmers, sausage-sellers, professional wrestlers and computer games-designers assembled in a remote cleft of the Tyne Valley to portray a community fraying at the edges, eaten from the inside by some fearful sickness, searching for answers in the all the wrong places."
You can pre-order Peasant here. It’s out on June 2 via Domino.
Richard Dawson UK Tour Dates
June
08 Edinburgh, Summerhall
09 Leeds, Howard Assembly Room
10 Newcastle, The Cluny
11 Glasgow, Art School
17 Birmingham, Supersonic Festival
22 London, Church of St. John on Bethnal Green
23 Bristol, Fiddlers
24 Reading, South St Arts
25 Brighton and Hove, Old Hove Market
August
17-20 Brecon Beacons, Green Man Festival
