Gruff Rhys just played a surprise show in Hamilton – here's what you missed

Gruff Rhys previewed his forthcoming album Sadness Sets Me Free with an acoustic in-store at Into The Abyss in Hamilton. 

Sadness Sets Me Free is slated for release January 26 via Rough Trade. Watch the video for "Celestial Candyfloss" below.

Gruff Rhys – Sadness Sets Me Free

1. Sadness Sets Me Free

2. Bad Friend

3. Celestial Candyfloss

4. Silver Lining (Lead Balloons)

5. On The Far Side of the Dollar

6. They Sold My Home To Build A Skyscraper

7. Peace Signs

8. Cover Up The Cover Up

9. I Tendered My Resignation

10. I’ll Keep Singing

Gruff Rhys is pleased to announce his new album Sadness Sets Me Free, which will be released by Rough Trade Records on January 26, 2024. Incredibly, this will be the 25th album of his career (individually, collaboratively and as a member of various bands) that has spanned 35 years. 

And so it was that Gruff and his band – Osian Gwynedd (piano), Huw V Williams (double bass) and former Flaming Lips drummer turned Super Furry Animals archivist Kliph Scurlock (drums) piled into a van driven by the late, legendary tour manager “Dr” Kiko Loiacono and raced from Dunkirk, where they had just played the final show of a tour of Spain and France, to the outskirts of Paris in the early hours of a March morning in 2022. There, in La Frette Studios, a recording facility installed in a 19th-century house, Gruff and his road-hardened group tracked Sadness Sets Me Free in just three days. Backing vocals were added along the way by Kate Stables from This Is The Kit along with additional strings and orchestration and it was mixed between Marseille and Cardiff. What finally emerged from these intense bouts of cross-continental activity was Gruff’s most accomplished and beautiful record to date. 

In a career that has taken him from the slate-mining towns of north-west Wales, down to the expat communities of Patagonia, up to the Mandan tribe of the Great Plains of North America and across to the Tuareg rock groups of the Saharan Desert, Gruff Rhys, one of Britain’s most beloved and successful singer-songwriters, has always been willing to follow an opportunity, wherever it may lead him. “At this point I quite like working with serendipity,” he says. “Not in a cosmic way, [but] I try and leave things open to chance encounters and chance geography. As I'm around 25 albums in I’m always looking for ways to make a different-sounding record.” 

You can pre-order a copy of Sadness Sets Me Free while Bandcamp still exists right here. Check out the video for "Celestial Candyfloss" below.