Smoke Fairies’ new album, the titled Smoke Fairies, shows the band in top form, combining their classic approach whilst exploring new forms of musical expression – but it is an album that they nearly didn’t make. There was a moment after the release of Blood Speaks (2012) when Jessica Davies turned to musical partner Katherine Blamire and told her she was no longer sure whether Smoke Fairies should continue. The suggestion of not playing music together would potentially impact more than just their band – theirs was a friendship forged by music, by a shared ambition that had carried them from their schooldays and on to songwriting and performing together. Smoke Fairies is set for release in North America on May 6th on Full Time Hobby (with an April 14th release date in EU).

The new video for “We’ve Seen Birds,” the album opening cut, was released this week on Vevo. The song itself was written as an apology from Davies to Blamaire for almost giving up on Smoke Fairies prior to the upcoming album, and the video was shot on location in Chichester and was directed by Jonathan Pound, who also directed the video for the album debut “Eclipse Them All”. The video features an epic bird sculpture created and hand made on the video shoot location by Smoke Fairies. The video’s narrative centers around the world of Smoke Fairies from the creation of the Bird sculpture to its first flight.

In the six years since Smoke Fairies first entered a recording studio, they have made two albums, supported on tours with Bryan Ferry, Richard Hawley and Laura Marling, and had a single released on Jack White’s Third Man Records. Blamire talks of secretly listening to pop music on the bus, trying to figure out what made it good, etc.  For Davies, her own personal yardstick had become “anything with a drumbeat that made me dance around the kitchen.”  Smoke Fairies yearned to make an album that wasn’t simply recorded live, but rather presented songs that were pored over, puzzled-out, refined and produced. “We wanted to feel that we had dissected everything back to its basic bones,” avers Davies, “and then for every song to kind of shimmer.”

Smoke Fairies
Smoke Fairies
Out May 6th on Full Time Hobby (April 14th EU)

Tracklist:
We’ve Seen Birds
Eclipse Them All
Shadow Inversions
Hope Is Religion
Waiting for Something to Begin
Your Own Silent Movie
Misty Versions
Drinks and Dancing
Koto
Want It Forever
The Very Last Time
Are You Crazy

Upcoming Smoke Fairies UK Tour Dates:

26th May     RAMSGATE, MUSIC HALL
27th May        MANCHESTER, BAND ON THE WALL
28th May     YORK, THE DUCHESS
29th May     LIVERPOOL, EAST VILLAGE ARTS CLUB
30th May     GLASGOW, THE POETRY CLUB
1st June        BIRMINGHAM, HARE & HOUNDS
2nd June        LONDON, XOYO
3rd June        BRISTOL, THEKLA
4th June        BRIGHTON, STICKY MIKE’S FROG BAR

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