LISTEN TO: Graham Coxon - A+E

Blur guitarist Graham Coxon has spoken about his latest solo album 'A+E' and has said he believes the recording of the album has opened him up to a whole new style of music. 


The album, which is the eighth solo release of Coxon's career, will be released on April 2 and contains 10 tracks in all. The album is the follow-up to his 2009 album 'The Spinning Top'. Coxon has described it as a "cold, hard and gritty" record. Scroll to the bottom of the page to watch a few previews of the album including live tracks as well.






STREAM THE ALBUM IN FULL BY CLICKING HERE (OPENS IN NEW WINDOW)

The tracklisting for 'A+E' is as follows:


'Advice'
'City Hall' 
'What’ll It Take' 
'Meet+Drink+Pollinate' 
'The Truth' 
'Seven Naked Valleys' 
'Running For Your Life' 
'Bah Singer' 
'Knife In The Cast'
'Ohh, Yeh, Yeh' 



Speaking to the Daily Telegraph about the album, Coxon said that it differed from his previous solo offerings as there is a "lack of romantic songs" on the album. 

Asked about 'A+E', he said: "There's a lack of romantic songs on the album, which is unusual for me. It's cold, hard and gritty. Maybe it's a massively jealous record, about the stuff I don't do any more: living dangerously and going out with a roll of the dice."

Coxon also spoke about the manner of the album's recording, revealing that he had purposefully used a lot of analogue gear and wanted the LP to feature "perverse sounds".

He said of this: "'A+E' is very English. We used a lot of old synths, and drum machines that were so analogue they were almost human. We wanted perverse sounds so we didn't clean up the sound much." 



Speaking to NME about the album, Coxon revealed that he has another 10 songs recorded, but does not want to release them as he feels it would be a "backward step". 


Asked about how many songs he recorded for 'A+E', the guitarist replied: "Well I recorded 22 songs, and 'A+E' was 10 of those. If I'd done these 10, it’d be a couple of months. Quite quick. Two of the 22 were rubbish, so really there’s another 10." 


Then asked what was likely to happen to those songs, he said: "They’re just sitting there. They're not like 'A+E'. 'A+E' was a particular pile of songs, and the other songs went into another pile. They’re more what you’d associate with Graham Coxon I guess. Mid-80s, indie, Velvet Underground-influenced, Scott Walker-y, soulful, filmic." 

Then asked if those tracks would ever be released, he replied: "I don’t think so. It might be backward step. If it feels good to put them out, maybe I will, but with 'A+E' I feel like I’ve opened another door and I want to have a look through it. I love some of the songs. I don't think they can be dressed up differently either."


The guitarist then went onto detail his reasons for not releasing the tracks and spoke about the recording of Blur's single 'Coffee & TV' by way of comparison. 


He said: "I think songs develop like photographs, to the point where they’re so developed they can’t be changed. I was thinking about the guitar solo to 'Coffee & TV' actually. I just put something there because we wanted to fill a gap, and said 'We'll come back to it' and the song developed, so we kept it. It’s one of the nicest things about making songs. And that solo, I wasn’t even looking at the guitar, I was just stomping on pedals."

(SOURCE - NME)