King Creosote‘s (aka Kenny Anderson) last album was his 2016 Astronaut Meets Appleman – an album that marked a change of direction from the gentle, electronic beauty of Diamond Mine, his Mercury-nominated collaboration with Jon Hopkins, and the optimism of From Scotland with Love. Seven years on, King Creosote has announced I DES, due for release on November 3rd via Domino Records, on which he finds his rekindled love for ambient and modular kicks.
Domino tell us:
…no, it hasn’t bypassed a songwriter so buoyed by playful lyricism that the title of this latest release is an easy anagram of “Dies”. But bear a couple of things in mind:
1) I DES is a reference to KC’s key collaborator this time around – multi-instrumentalist and co-producer Derek O’Neill aka Des Lawson of Blantyre (2014’s From Scotland With Love, 2016’s Astronaut Meets Appleman);
and
2) HRH King Creosote has been circling his demise for the entirety of his musakal life.
“I shan’t complain,” he rejoices on the album’s most uplifting hymn “Blue Marbled Elm Trees” – a new song also shared today – “I had the best time laughing with my girls / I had the best life offered up / By this blue marble or any alien world.”
Watch the accompanying video, which was Directed by Reuben Sutherland and produced and animated by Joyrider. The song reflects on life, death, the universe, art and love. Always the big stuff with Kenny.
His rekindled love for ambient and modular kicks is not down to Jon Hopkins but Nils Frahm, whom he saw live in Edinburgh; leading to an enduring fascination with loops (“because we’re always going back”); and to a book by David Stubbs. “I started listening to drones and stuff again because I read Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany,” he offers.
The album was largely written between 2016 and 2020, but nothing is ever as simple as that: there’s something old (trees), something blue (also trees), something borrowed (home tapes and vocals from through the ages; lyrics from the distant past), and something new (KC quips that a potential title for this album was We All Got Synths for Christmas).
I DES is available to pre-order on gold-coloured DomMart & indies-exclusive vinyl, standard vinyl (on both vinyl formats, the 36-minute final track “Drone In B#” will come on a download card), limited double-disc CD (with “Drone in B#” on CD2) and digitally. Pre-order: DomMart | Digital
I Des Tracklisting:
- It’s Sin That’s Got Its Hold Upon Us
- Blue Marbled Elm Trees
- Burial Bleak
- Dust
- Walter de la Nightmare
- Susie Mullen
- Love is a Curse
- Ides
- Please Come Back I Will Listen, I Will Behave, I Will Toe The Line
- Drone In B#
Upcoming live dates
Friday 3rd November – Monorail, Glasgow – solo acoustic
Saturday 4th November – Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh – matinee
Saturday 4th November – Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Sunday 5th November – Assai, Edinburgh – solo acoustic
Monday 6th November – Assai, Dundee – solo acoustic
Wednesday 8th November – Rough Trade East, London – solo acoustic
Thursday 9th November – EartH Theatre, London
Friday 10th November – Resident, Brighton – solo acoustic