Words: ROBIN MUMFORD
Johnny Marr has announced his upcoming double album release, ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’. Marking his fourth solo full-length record, the 16-track double LP will be released on February 25th, 2022, via BMG.
The new album will be the first full album of the legendary guitarist of The Smiths since 2018’s acclaimed UK Top Ten release, ‘Call The Comet’. ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’ is divided into four chapters. All 16 songs make up a fantastically expansive work with a deliberate beginning and end.
Talking ahead of the album release, Johnny Marr quotes: “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing - really since getting out of The Smiths until now, and I hear it in this record. There are so many strands of music in it. We didn’t do that consciously, but I think I’ve got a vocabulary of sound. And I feel very satisfied that I’ve been able to harness it.”
‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’ explores a multitude of concepts and themes. Because the wider world effectively shut down during its creation, Marr’s focus was pushed into both his interior life, and evoking the emotional and psychological states of others. “It’s an inspired record and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day”, he lamented. “But I had to go inwards”.
As well as evoking the past and present, the album looks to the future, the idea that even in the most trying times, hope endures. Songs like 'Hideaway Girl', 'Lightning People' and 'Tenement Time' are anthemic, rousing creations, elsewhere 'The Speed Of Love' and 'Rubicon' offer introspective, exploratory pieces that take advantage of the project’s emphasis on space. Running through everything are two key elements: echoes of the wildly diverse music from across Marr’s career, and lyrics that are direct, emotional, deeply human, and thereby true to what Marr calls The Language Of The Song.
Looking to 2022 and following the release of ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’, Johnny Marr will join Blondie as a special guest on their ‘Against The Odds’ headline tour through April and May, including London’s O2 Arena, before heading out on The Killers’ headline US arena tour, beginning in August through to October 2022.
‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’ will be available on CD and double vinyl with the official store offering exclusive limited edition white vinyl and cassettes, alongside merch bundles with signed prints. HMV and independent record stores will also be stocking a limited-edition turquoise vinyl pressing.
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