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Alex Rex (Alex Neilson of Trembling Bells) shares video for “Latest Regret” – New album Otterburn out 29th March

January 31, 2019

Alex Rex
(Alex Neilson of Trembling Bells)
shares video for “Latest Regret”
New album Otterburn out 29th March
More shows announced for April

Alex Neilson of the Trembling Bells premieres the second single “Latest Regret” on The 405“It’s a song that finds Alex Rex weaving among dark thoughts, both comic and earnest, carried by loping and wistful rock.”  (The 405)

Alex will be releasing his second solo album Otterburn, under the moniker Alex Rex on the 29th March on Tin Angel Records.

Alex Neilson says, “”Latest Regret” was written in one sitting in Regents Park during an unhappy stay in London. It’s basically “La Bamba” reimagined by a deranged art squirrel. It was filmed by Tom Chick on the M8 motorway and in the Glad Café, Glasgow. It is our homage to the Cassavetes film “Killing Of A Chinese Bookie”   It stars Becca Harrison, Sophie Sexon, Rory Haye, Mike Hastings & Lew Porteous.”

Lavinia Blackwall, Mike Hastings, Rory Haye and Dave McGowan also perform on the new single.

It’s impossible to describe Otterburn without first addressing the cataclysmic event that led up to it. On the 29th of April 2017, Alex’s brother Alastair died peacefully and unexpectedly in his sleep on his canal boat in Leeds. The youngest of three boys, Alastair embodied all his family’s best qualities and was a charming and spontaneous friend to anyone lucky enough to cross his path.

The trope that heartbreak yields an artist’s best work is a tired one, but what of bereavement?  Grief is a complex monster. For those skilled at building songs, it can provide a new set of tools and floor plans. Would this album have been the same without the trauma Alex experienced? Undoubtedly not. Otterburn heaves with despair, but brings with it too an idiosyncratic sense of the comic.

Otterburn reunites Alex with a couple of his Trembling Bells band mates; Lavinia Blackwall – her voice as true as church bells – and Mike Hastings – who is reaching Brian Jones levels of multi-instrumentalist brilliance. But this is a very different beast to the Bells. Otterburn has an ad-hoc intimacy and ability to make the epic seem small and the small seem epic that pitches it closer to Desire-era Dylan than Folk Rock aristocracy. The rest of the assembled company (Alasdair Roberts, Dave McGowan, Rory Haye et al) are among Scotland’s finest.

UK Tour Dates:
02/04  Glasgow – Blue Arrow
03/04  Edinburgh – Sneaky Pete’s
04/04- Bradford– Shipley Triangle
05/04- Leeds– The Abbey Pub
06/04  Bristol – The Cube
07/04  Bath – The Bell
08/04  Leicester – The Musician
09/04  Brighton – The Rose Hill
10/04  London – SET
11/04  Birmingham – Hare & Hounds
13/04  Todmorden – Golden Lion
14/04  Sheffield – Bishop’s House

Pre-order Otterburn – https://alexrex.bandcamp.com/album/otterburn


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