Name: Sadness Sets Me Free
Brand: Gruff Rhys

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

RT0420LPE2

Colour

Brown

Colour details

Chocolate Neo-Neapolitan Vinyl 

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: Yes

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2024-01-26

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

RTUK

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

0191402042092

Total Cap

Brown LP | Rough Trade Exclusive

RT-0420-LP

Black

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format: No

Beggars Group

191402042016

Black LP

RT-0420-LPE3

Purple

Blackberry Neo-Neapolitan Coloured Vinyl

{"time": 1696959622138, "blocks": [], "version": "2.26.4"}

191402042009

Purple LP

RT-0420-CD

191402042023

Artist

Gruff Rhys

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Rough Trade

Singer, guitarist and main songwriter with Super Furry Animals. Gruff Rhys has an eclectic and eccentric musical style, reflected in his solo albums released since 2005. His debut album was recorded entirely in Welsh, followed by several other successful releases. He has collaborated with various artists and contributed to soundtracks. Gruff's music is known for its unique concepts and storytelling.

Vinyl variants, bonus material and signed editions exclusively available from Rough Trade.

Gruff Rhys is pleased to announce his new album “Sadness Sets Me Free” which will be released by Rough Trade Records on 26.01.2024. This incredibly will be the 25th album he has released in his 35 year career individually, collaboratively and as a member of various bands. “Sadness Sets Me Free” is also the follow up to 2021’s “Seeking new Gods”, his first solo top ten record.

Lead-off single “Celestial Candyfloss” is a telling four minute glimpse of the forthcoming album, revealing the heady wonders and classic pop sounds within. Soaring strings carry the sweet melodies along, anchored by just enough necessary melancholy to add emotional ballast. The eye-popping video was created by long-time collaborator Mark James and compliments the scope and style of the song on a galactic scale.

“Celestial Candyfloss” is, Gruff says, “an attempted pocket symphony about the cosmic lengths that people will travel in the pursuit of love and acceptance. Mark James has brought the Sadness Sets Me Free album cover to life &amp; managed to place me watching TV interference in a shipping container that’s lost in space. For what is apparently the 25th album I’ve had a hand in writing I’ve reverted to a rich seam of inspiration relating to shedding some light on sadness and the general terror of cosmic loneliness.” 

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” 

Sadness Sets Me Free

Music US

Discover Sadness Sets Me Free by Gruff Rhys. The 25th album from the beloved singer-songwriter, released by Rough Trade Records. Vinyl records available.