News: Damien Rice returns with new album ‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’
2 min read
The long awaited new album from Damien Rice – ‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’ – will be released on 3rd November in the UK & Ireland and Friday November 7 in Australia. The new record is Rice’s first collection of material in eight years and was produced by Rick Rubin and Rice.
‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’ follows the seminal ‘O’ which sold two and a half million copies worldwide, won the prestigious Shortlist Prize and is certified Gold in Australia—as well as the million-selling, Brit-nominated follow-up ‘9’.
[youtube id=”xGIIfNxfUAE” width=”620″ height=”360″]
The title track from the album, ‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’ was given its world premiere on Zane Lowe BBC Radio 1 overnight and is available as an instant grat track when you pre-order the album on iTunes, and available to stream on Spotify from Tuesday 9th September in the UK and Wednesday 10th September in Australia.
“Sometimes you have to step away from what you love in order to learn how to love it again,” says Rice regarding the long gap between albums. Whilst fans would repeatedly ask “when?” for Rice the real question had shifted to “why make an album at all?”
The recording process with producer Rubin began in Los Angeles and finished up in Iceland. “I came to Rick mostly based on what I didn’t know about him, rather than what I did”, describes Rice. “For some reason I just had a feeling that I would feel comfortable being open and being me and being vulnerable with Rick.”
Rubin, meanwhile, first saw Rice play live around the release of ‘O’, and recalls that “he was my favourite new artist at the time. A lot of our work together was to help him see what was so clear to everyone else in the room.” Rice then went from Los Angeles to Iceland and assembled a cast of friends and local musicians to complete the record against the stunning backdrop of Reykjavik.
Intimate, frank and revitalised by making music again ‘My Favourite Faded Fantasy’ is a record that accepts one’s faults but also begins, perhaps, to appreciate one’s ability to grow up.
