Bernard Butler / Good Grief
First solo album in 25 years
Bernard Butler has kept very busy these last 25 years, with numerous collaborative projects including two albums with folk musician Sam Lee, a second McAlmont & Butler record, The Tears (which was better than the two Suede albums it followed), an album with actor Jessie Buckley, and other projects with Bert Jansch and Ben Watt from Everything But The Girl, The Libertines, Tricky and Duffy (to name but a few). What he hasn’t done is released a solo album since 1999’s Friends and Lovers, but that is about to change with the impending release of Good Grief, Butler’s third solo record, due in May.
Butler explains: “For a good while I was scarred and I was scared. I was happily distracted and joyously involved with so much music. I realised just being there was more than I had ever hoped for. I gave a lot to other people, but realised that my story was defined but what I was, rather than what I am. I set myself a modest commercial goal, an expectant creative one: perform to 10 people without being bottled, then find 11 the next night. Thus began the undoing of my own embarrassment. I would write as I thought and sing as I wrote until the bottles fly. And so, the songs arrived“.
Bernard booked himself into a rehearsal space in Holloway every Wednesday afternoon for months, just him, a guitar and a microphone. The first fruit of these sessions is the new single ‘Camber Sands’ – “a love song – we flee the past, the present, ourselves, to survive, to defy. The loneliest music of the resolute, the half-light and the saddest tunes” says Butler.
The 9-track album is available on CD and vinyl, with various coloured vinyl variants including an indie-exclusive silver vinyl pressing. There will also be a Dolby Atmos mix, although that will be available via streaming only.
Good Grief is released on 31 May 2024 via 355 Recordings.
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BERNARD BUTLER
Good Grief - black vinyl LP
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BERNARD BUTLER
Good Grief - CD edition
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Tracklisting
Good Grief Bernard Butler /
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- Camber Sands
- Deep Emotions
- Living The Dream
- Preaching To The Choir
- Pretty D
- The Forty Foot
- London Snow
- Clean
- The Wind
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By Paul Sinclair
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