Fat Cat Records have announced that Vashti Bunyan is to release a new album called ‘Heartleap’ on October 6th in the UK / Europe via FatCat and October 7th in North America via DiCristina.
Although she hasn’t played live since 2010 Vashti hasn’t been absent from the recording studio. She very recently recorded vocals on a track by We/Or/Me, the musical alias of Bahhaj Taherzadeh, an Irish-born, Chicago-based songwriter which we recently featured on Folk Radio UK (read more about it here).
After reading the news I did wonder whether the re-emergence of Linda Perhacs and the release of The Soul of All Natural Things had started a domino effect. Like Linda both artists released their debuts in 1970, both went largely undiscovered but later went through a public re-discovery around 2005 thanks to the New Weird America movement and Devendra Banhart. Linda was persuaded to re-issue Parallelograms in 2005, the same year in which Vashti released her second album, Lookaftering on Fat Cat Records. Prior to this it was the re-issue of Just Another Diamond Day in 2000 that Banhart fell under the spell of her music leading to future collaborations alongside the likes of the Animal Collective. Incidentally amongst the musicians that featured on that debut album were Dave Swarbrick, Robin Williamson and Simon Nicol.
According to the label, in contrast to previous releases, ‘Heartleap’ was primarily recorded, written and arranged by Vashti in her Edinburgh home studio. The following tour dates have been announced:
Vashti Bunyan Tour Dates
07 Oct – MAC, Birmingham,
08 Oct – St. Pancras Church, London
09 Oct – St. Pancras Church, London
11 Oct – The Band Room, Farndale
12 Oct – St. Philip’s Church, Manchester,
More news to follow soon.