Ezra Furman (Credit: Jessica Lehrmann )
Ezra Furman releases UK tour dates and two new singles ahead of new album launch and Getintothis’ Jane Davies has all the details.
Chicago rocker Ezra Furman has announced UK tour dates and shared two new singles ahead of new album launch of Twelve Nudes on August 30, I wanna be your girl friend and Evening Prayer.
I wanna be your girlfriend, Ezra describes as being: “A romantic song of transgender longing” with a little bit of “desperation, religion and body-talk”.
The accompanying video directed by Alix Spence portrays “How we wrestle with ourselves and the complexities of our personal struggles”.
In contrast, Furman describes Evening Prayer as a rallying cry for all his fans to become activists, “We punk fans have so much energy to give to the fight against injustice, i.e. the abuse of the poor by the rich, i.e. climate change, so this is one to get you into the mood”.
No stranger to whipping up anger, Furman’s 2018 album, Transangelic Exodus was in his words, “An angry and fearful and pent up reaction to events.”
Not one to rest on his laurels, Furman then went on to produce the soundtrack for the Netflix drama comedy show Sex Education before embarking on his latest album, Twelve Nudes, recorded between October and November 2018 and mixed by producer John Congleton.
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The curiously named new album has been inspired by the late punk rocker Jay Reatard and the Canadian poet, philosopher and essayist, Anne Carson.
Carson reportedly had visions, or meditations to deal with the intense pain in her life, which she called ‘nudes’. Furman subsequently identified his songs as meditations on pain and, inspired by Carson’s work, the title Twelve Nudes was born.
Twelve Nudes is a highly political and emotive album, grappling with burning issues such as the Israel/Palestine conflict, sexual assault, Mexico and slavery.
Twelve Nudes track list:
- Calm down aka I should not be alone
- Evening Prayer aka Justice
- Transition from Nowhere to Nowhere
- Rated R Crusaders
- Trauma
- Thermometer
- I wanna be your girlfriend
- Blown
- My teeth hurtIn America
- What can you do but Rock ‘n’ Roll
Ezra Furman will play:
- 11 November: QMA, Glasgow
- 12 November:Albert Hall, Manchester
- 13 November: Bristol O2 Academy, Bristol
- 14 November: O2 Kentish Town. London
You can watch the videos for the new songs I wanna be your girlfriend and Evening Prayer here:
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