Pictish Trail announces biggest ever headline tour March/April 2020
New album Thumb World out February 21 | Watch + share video for ‘Bad Algebra’
PICTISH TRAILMARCH/APRIL 2020 HEADLINE TOUR ANNOUNCEDALL DATES ON SALE NOW
WATCH THE LYRIC VIDEO FOR ‘BAD ALGEBRA’
TAKEN FROM THE FORTHCOMING NEW ALBUM THUMB WORLD,
OUT FEBRUARY 21, 2020
ON FIRE RECORDS,
PRE-ORDER NOW:fire-records.lnk.to/PT_ThumbWorld
PICTISH TRAIL LIVE
WED, NOV 27 @ DUBLIN, WHELAN’S (SUPPORTING STEVE MASON)THU, NOV 28 @ BELFAST, EMPIRE MUSIC HALL (SUPPORTING STEVE MASON)FRI, DEC 6 @ OLD CINEMA LAUNDRETTE, DURHAM [TICKETS]SUN, DEC 8 @ SOUTH STREET READING [TICKETS]MON, DEC 9 @ CAFÉ TOTEM, SHEFFIELD [TICKETS]TUE, DEC 10 @ THE WHEATSHEAF, OXFORD [TICKETS]WED, DEC 11 @ PRINCE ALBERT, STROUD [FREE]FRI, DEC 13 @ RAMSGATE MUSIC HALL, RAMSGATE [TICKETS]SAT, DEC 14 @ DAYLIGHT MUSIC, YULETIDE IN A SCOTCH SITTING ROOM(MATINEE, w/ CALLUM EASTER)SAT, DEC 14 @ FIRE RECORDS SHOWCASE, STUDIO 9294, LONDON (EVENING SHOW w/ VANISHING TWIN, FENELLA, DEATH AND VANILLA) [TICKETS]SUN, DEC 15 @ LOST MAP SHOWCASE, THE LEXINGTON, LONDON (w/ CLEMENTINE MARCH, SAVAGE MANSION, CALLUM EASTER) [TICKETS]FRI, JAN 17 @ CELTIC CONNECTIONS, SAINT LUKES, GLASGOW (w/ ROZI PLAIN) [TICKETS]
MARCH/APRIL 2020 HEADLINE TOUR:
TUE, MAR 24 @ HARE & HOUNDS, BIRMINGHAM [TICKETS]WED, MAR 25 @ BOILEROOM, GUILDFORD [TICKETS]THU, MAR 26 @ CLWB IFOR BACH, CARDIFF [TICKETS]FRI, MAR 27 @ LOUISIANA, BRISTOL [TICKETS]SAT, MAR 28 @ OMEARA, LONDON [TICKETS]SUN, MAR 29 @ THE HOPE & RUIN, BRIGHTON [TICKETS]TUE, MAR 31 @ BODEGA, NOTTINGHAM [TICKETS]WED, APR 1 @ TRADES CLUB, HEBDEN BRIDGE [TICKETS]THU, APR 2 @ CLUNY 2, NEWCASTLE [TICKETS]FRI, APR 3 @ GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER [TICKETS]SAT, APR 4 @ BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB, LEEDS [TICKETS]THU, APR 9 @ TOLLBOOTH, STIRLING [TICKETS]FRI, APR 10 @ BEAT GENERATOR, DUNDEE [TICKETS]SAT, APR 11 @ QUEEN’S HALL, EDINBURGH [TICKETS]SUN, APR 12 @ LEMON TREE, ABERDEEN [TICKETS] “A REAL HERO OF THE SCOTTISH UNDERGROUND SCENE”– HUW STEPHENS, BBC 6 MUSIC“HIS NEW ALBUM… COULD BE HIS MOST DAZZLING, MOST EXCEPTIONAL YET”– CLASH MUSIC
Fire Records announce brand new material from Johnny Lynch, AKA Isle-of-Eigg dwelling electro-acoustic psych-pop wonder Pictish Trail. ‘Bad Algebra’ is taken from his forthcoming fourth album Thumb World, which is due for release on February 21, 2020. It arrives at the same time as Pictish announce his biggest ever headline tour, starting at the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham on March 24 and ending back in his native Scotland, with dates including the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh on April 11. See all dates above.
Four years in the making, Thumb World is the much-anticipated follow-up to Pictish Trail’s critically acclaimed Scottish Album of the Year Award public vote winner Future Echoes. Bold, weird, wild, wired, sonically luxurious yet never losing touch with its DIY-‘til-I-die roots, Thumb World is a voyage to the outer rings of Pictish Trail’s mind at its darkest, funniest and most inventive – a plugged-in, fuzzed-out, fucked-up contemplation on, as he puts it, “life repeating and gradually degrading, the inevitable cyclical nature of things, and the sense of there ultimately being no escape.” Expect alien abductions, thumping beats, Trump-haired pigs, paternal panic, astronaut sex, bad acid trips, worse hangovers, lashings of distortion and a lot of anthropomorphic thumbs. “Our opposable thumbs are the things that separate us from most other animals on Earth,”
Pictish explains, of the fat digit symbolism, “they are also the things that we use to swipe on screens, to separate ourselves from our normal lives, but which in turn trap us within an artificial reality.” Produced and mixed by Rob Jones, featuring string arrangements from Kim Moore and drumming from Alex Thomas (Squarepusher, Anna Calvi, Air), Thumb World is Pictish Trail’s most collaborative album to date. An audio-visual dialogue with Swatpaz, AKA Scottish artist Davey Ferguson – the man behind the Turbo Fantasy series and an entire episode of cult TV phenomenon Adventure Time – furnished Johnny with not just a graphic aesthetic for the album, but even helped him to shape the sound of the finished record.
“I sent Davey a work-in-progress mix of the album,” Johnny says, “he came back with sketches in which he had reimagined Thumb World as an 80’s arcade game. Some of the songs are centered around specific visual images, inspired by Davey’s sketches.” When not putting out his own music as Pictish Trail, Johnny is a fulcrum of the British independent music community. Through his label Lost Map Records, he champions a diverse and idiosyncratic array of extraordinary talent and has helped to elevate the likes of Rozi Plain, Seamus Fogarty, Bas Jan, Callum Easter and Free Love to name just a few to new heights. Lost Map’s Howlin’ Fling Festival which he curates roughly every other year on the isle of Eigg, has welcomed special guests from Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle to James Holden, Beth Orton, Alexis Taylor, Jon Hopkins, Jane Weaver, Jens Lekman, Cate Le Bon, Gruff Rhys and Gwenno. It’s a life-affirming experience that sees all the exceptional music, creative energy and tireless good vibes that Johnny helps put out into the world all come piling back to his for a party like no other.
Pictish Trail’s critically acclaimed first pair of albums Secret Soundz Vols. 1 & 2 released in 2008 and 2013 respectively were gloriously eclectic slices of lo-fi folk-pop, later revived as a deluxe double-vinyl in 2014 by Moshi Moshi. His third album Future Echoes was released to further acclaim in September 2016, and went on to be shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year Award by popular vote, before being re-issued by Fire Records in the summer of 2018. Pictish Trail has toured the world both as a headliner and as support for artists including Belle & Sebastian, British Sea Power, Slow Club and KT Tunstall. He has performed at festivals including Glastonbury, Field Day, Bestival, Deer Shed, Celtic Connections, the Edinburgh Fringe and – for an extraordinary and surely record- breaking 17 consecutive years and counting (or for as long as they’ll continue to have him, anyway) – Green Man,
Pictish Trail’s psychedelic-bucolic spiritual home-from-home.
firerecords.com /// lostmap.com /// pictishtrail.co.uk
THUMB WORLD TRACKLISTING
1. Repeat Neverending 2. Double Sided 3. Pig Nice 4. Lead Balloon 5. Fear anchor 6. Slow Memories 7. Bad Algebra 8. Heart Eyes 9. Turning Back 10. Thumb World
MEDIA PRAISE FOR FUTURE ECHOES
“DELIGHTS IN ROVING ELECTRONICA”★★★★ – UNCUT“A DARK POP ALBUM, AS JOYFUL AS IT IS UNEXPECTED”★★★★ – MOJO“GLAZED WITH FUN AND POP AND EXCITEMENT”★★★★ – CLASH“PURVEYOR OF THE FINEST SPACE-AGE DISCO-WONK-POP”★★★★ – THE ARTS DESK“HIS VOICE HAS NEVER SOUNDED BETTER”★★★★ – THE SCOTSMAN“UNDOUBTEDLY HIS ALBUM BEST YET”★★★★ – GOD IS IN THE TV