Fyfe announces debut album, ‘Control’
Released via Believe Recordings on March 9
Live: UK Headline tour, London Electrowerkz on March 25
“Fyfe is rapidly blossoming into something quite special” Clash
“Pulls together the classicist perspective with emerging electronic production…Fyfe’s voice soars above it all” Noisey
“Tugs at the heartstrings before becoming more rhythmic and symphonic…[Fyfe] is still proving hard to categorise” Guardian
“London has become a hotbed for additive, glitchy R&B…our favourite purveyor happens to be Fyfe” Nylon
Fyfe will release his much-anticipated debut album, ‘Control’, on March 9 via Believe Recordings. The video to forthcoming single ‘Holding On’ premieres today, and is due November 24 (with support across Radio 1 – Zane Lowe, Huw Stephens, Annie Mac, Phil & Alice – 6Music and XFM). Having again topped Hype Machine, supported SOHN and played a string of sold-out shows as part of Communion’s New Faces tour, Fyfe has today announced an eight date headline tour in early 2015, including London Electrowerkz on March 25.
‘Control’ is a collection of brooding, expertly-crafted alternative pop songs, from an artist and producer who has already earned fans as diverse as London Grammar to Childish Gambino (plus over 2 million Soundcloud plays). For 25-year-old Paul Dixon, it’s a record which may have started as an exercise in tightening one’s grip on life, but is effectively about release, and learning that control itself is a fallacy. A prodigal young talent, Fyfe’s childhood was spent playing in youth orchestras, before his older brother ordered that he listen to cooler music and gave him a Logic set-up. Whilst studying Economics at university, Fyfe shifted away from his classical schooling – though a quietly symphonic grandeur still characterises ‘Control’ – to writing his own songs under the alias of David’s Lyre. Suddenly the two worlds collided and something had to give: halfway through his course he dropped out and signed to Mercury Records. Despite a wave of acclaim, Dixon became stuck within the major label infrastructure, lost momentum, and ended up right back where he started- though this time around, things were going to be different.
It was the appropriately-isolated sounds of ‘Solace’ which formed the blueprint of ‘Control’. Primarily a meditation on depression, Dixon emailed ‘Solace’ and just a picture of the back of his paint-streaked head by way of biography to a dozen music sites: without a PR, manager or any label in place, he watched it morph into one of the most-blogged hits of the year. Written and entirely self-produced by Fyfe, subsequent album ‘Control’ feels as inspired by the 90s hip-hop beats of Dixon’s childhood as the delicate pop of The XX, via the swelling orchestral arrangements of Bjork’s ‘Volta’: all held together by Fyfe’s near-falsetto vocal croon.
Older, wiser, but still just 25, Fyfe’s debut album is a journey of self-discovery from an artist and producer who has picked himself up and come back stronger. A pop record with a working brain and a beating heart, ‘Control’ is the sound of an artist seizing back the reigns and then letting them go, turning his paint-smeared, back-to-camera to face forwards – looking right at you, and into the future.
Tracklisting:
- Conversations
- Holding On
- Solace
- Polythene Love
- For You
- In Waves
- Lies Pt II
- Keep It Together
- Veins
- St Tropez
- Control
LIVE
Mar 24 | Green Door Store | Brighton http://www.seetickets.com/Event/fyfe/the-green-door-store/828204
Mar 25 | Electrowerks | London http://www.communionmusic.co.uk/live/events/25-mar-15-fyfe-electrowerkz
Mar 27 | Louisiana | Bristol http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/fyfe/the-louisiana/2015-03-27-19-30/55952
Mar 28 | The Sunflower Lounge | Birmingham http://birminghampromoters.com/Events/fyfe/
Mar 29 | Bodega | Nottingham http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/fyfe/the-bodega/2015-03-29-19-00/43962
Mar 31 | Castle | Manchester http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/fyfe/the-castle-hotel/2015-03-27-19-30
Apr 01 | Nice N Sleazys | Glasgow www.gigsinscotland.com
Apr 02 | Brudenell Games Room | Leeds https://www.lunatickets.co.uk/event_page.php?eventID=3177
Fyfe (aka Paul Dixon) has taken on Kanye’s Through The Wire with this characteristically downbeat, echoed interpretation, which still retains the beats-led bones of the original (Childish Gambino is a fan of Fyfe’s actually) alongside vocal snippets from the big man himself.
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