SFA ANNOUNCE LIVE RETURN
Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys has revealed full details of the band's new album 'Hey Venus!'. Rhys has announced news regarding their live comeback dates ahead of their appearance at the Glastonbury Festival next month. The band will play four nights at Cardiff's notorious Clwb Ifor Bach in June. The band last played at this venue prior to signing to Creation over 12 years ago.
SFA will then follow up those shows with a one off gig at London's ICA on June 19, before heading for Glastonbury to kick off a summer of festival dates. The record, the follow-up to 2005's 'Love Kraft', is released on August 27 by the band's new label Rough Trade. It's preceded by a single, 'Show Your Hand', on August 13. Explaining the title, Rhys revealed that the album initially started out as a concept album based around a character called Venus.
He stated: “At lot of the songs have the same central theme – following a young woman called Venus moving from a small town to a big metropolis and following her adventures.
“Some songs link up to that story more than others, but some were left off the record, they'll be on the next one, which we're working on already. It started off as a concept, but then we chose songs for their merit rather than their themes.”
The tracklisting for 'Hey Venus!' is as follows:
'The Gateway Song'
'Runaway'
'Show Your Hand'
'The Gift'
'Neo Consumer'
'Into The Night'
'Baby Ate My Eight Ball'
'Carbon Dating'
'Suckers'
'Battersea Odyssey'
'Wolves'
Speaking about the Cardiff dates, Rhys said: “Usually we go on a tour of Wales or a tour of the Western Isles of Scotland to get warmed up for touring properly and usually by the end of the tour to work out how to play the songs we've partied so hard cos we're excited to get back on the road we're too knackered for the actual tour, we're half dead by the time we start touring.
“So we thought we'd just play a tour of Cardiff so we can have a lie-in every morning!”
The band's full list of summer shows is as follows:
Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach (June 11-14)
London ICA (19)
Glastonbury Festival (Other Stage) (22)
Kent Lounge On The Farm (July 13)
Coventry Godiva Festival (July 14)
Lovebox Festival (Dublin and London) (21)
Cardiff Metro Weekender (August 25)
Connect Festival (31)
Jersey Live (September 2)
End of The Road Festival (15)
Tickets for the Cardiff and London shows go onsale on Monday (May 28) at 9am. To check ticket availability and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/GIGS.