JOHNNY BORRELL releases new single ‘My World, Your Life’ + RAZORLIGHT announce first album in 10 years

JOHNNY BORRELL releases new single 'My World, Your Life' + RAZORLIGHT announce first album in 10 years

Following up on the critically acclaimed ‘Atlantic Culture’ album ‘My World, Your Life’ is the latest single from the unexpected, challenging, iconoclastic solo career of Johnny Borrell. Recorded during the latter phase of sessions with the Zazou group of musicians, the song mixes diverse influences, including West African, South American, Celtic, Basque and British, to create what Borrell calls Atlantic music, influenced by both Atlantic coasts.

In the early part of the decade, Johnny had dropped out of the cycle of Razorlight albums and was spending much of his time in a small village in the Basque country of southern France. Free from expectations he explored a more open way to create with a cabal of multi-instrumentalists playing everything from African percussion to violin.

The saxophone player Joao Mello was discovered by Johnny as an 18-year-old busking on the street and went on to play stadiums with David Gilmour. Zazou toured the world putting on wild shows out of their trance jazz (Zazou is 1940s French slang for an underground jazz subculture) and went on to record two maverick albums.

While the gradual process of gaining respect for the eclectic musicality moved forward, Johnny kept on recording and by 2017 was looking for a home for a new albums worth of songs. In a meeting of minds Johnny was introduced to Gearbox records and found that they shared a love of vinyl, exploratory jazz, deep groove and analogue equipment. Swiftly a plan was hatched to release the first of a series of solo Johnny Borrell 7 inches as part of their Vinyl Mastered 7s Single Club.

Listen to ‘My World, Your Life’ – BELOW:

While ‘My World, Your Life’ leans towards the rock music that Johnny made in Razorlight, the full album due to follow later in the year will again be highly exploratory, as is the B-side of the 7 inch ‘The Rain It Raineth Every Day’, Johnny’s interpretation of a song from Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, with a melody adapted from Ingmar Bergman’s interpretation of the song, but here played in a Tudor Be Bop format.

With his next solo album exhibiting one facet of his musical curiosity Johnny is also due to compare and contrast, with a highly charged new Razorlight album later this year (their first in ten years) – just to make sure there’s something for everyone.

Gearbox Records Valve Mastered 7s Single Club

This release will also be the fourth record to drop in the labels exclusive 7” vinyl subscription service. This subscription service offers an exclusive 7” record every month to subscribers, all of the releases are totally valve mastered recordings featuring Gearbox’s vintage Decca valve mixer in association with their Haeco Scully lathe with Westrex RA1700 series amps, Westrex 3DIIA cutting head, and Telefunken U73B tube limiter – a truly analogue experience.

All future singles in this series will only be available via subscription to the Valve Mastered 7s Single Club.

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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