Smith & Burrows return with their first new music since the album ‘Funny Looking Angels’ in 2011
Almost nine years on from their first foray into working together where they spent the summer of 2011 ensconced in an attic in Hammersmith making the distinctly wintery Funny Looking Angels, old mates Tom Smith and Andy Burrows are pleased to announce the reconvening of their musical partnership with a brand new track, All The Best Moves, that received its worldwide unveiling on Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio Two show last night.
All The Best Moves is; “about wanting to stay in on your own, in your safe world. Afraid of what’s outside but conversely being kind of full of yourself but in reality, just a bit sad and lonely”
says Tom Smith
Self- recorded during lockdown, the video features Smith and Burrows in monochrome, dancing to the camera which alludes to Smith’s vision of a character who is “pulling some incredible dance moves but in the solitude of their front room, never actually showing anybody.”
The adventure that started nine years ago as two drinking buddies popping into each other’s houses and home studios, putting down an idea here and a melody there, developed into a set of songs with a Christmas theme, then a theoretical album, then, following help from their friends on additional instruments and as backing voices, a real album with a raucous tour of Xmas shows in Winter 2012.
“It was always our plan to follow up with an album of entirely original material and one not tied to a particular season! It’s taken longer than we wanted but here we are.”
The interim has been anything but idle for the two musicians with Smith on duty with Editors, number one albums in Europe and Top Tens at home have seen the band’s star rise to unprecedented heights since their inception at the onset of the noughties. Meanwhile Burrows has released several solo albums, seen collaborations on soundtracks including The Snowman and The Snowdog and last year composing the soundtrack for Ricky Gervais’ critically acclaimed After Life.
Alongside this, the pair have continued their friendship and been quietly exchanging ideas and spending days in Smith’s home studio when time allowed, developing ideas into songs together. The resultant demos as Smith says; eventually “took us to Franklin, Tennessee to work with Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Norah Jones). It was fucking hot. Like crazy hot. We strummed vintage guitars, ate incredible fried chicken and drank whisky we can’t afford. It was a blast.”
All the Best Moves is the first music to be released from those sessions.
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