Who? Ed Harcourt
What’s the story? Ed Harcourt is a man who deserves some respect. Ever since his 2001 debut Here Be Monsters was nominated for the Mercury Prize, he's produced quality music without making headlines, cultivating a loyal fanbase in the process. Not only that, but he worked with Sophie Ellis Bextor on her excellent 2014 album Wanderlust, as well as playing keyboards for her live. Imagine how much fun it must be to play Murder On The Dancefloor every night. Anyway, we digress.
Now, he's back with the title track of his forthcoming seventh album Furnaces, and we're delighted to be premiering the video for it, directed by Metallica and Tom Waits collaborator Matt Mahurin. The song itself is a gloriously dense, bluesy howl of anguish, while the lyrics deal with themes of impending environmental disaster and the continual effort to 'keep the furnace burning'. Harcourt himself says, "I wanted this song to sound like a loping, clanking fire-breathing giant made out of machinery eating up the earth and spewing vast projectiles of junk out, leaving chaos and emptiness in its wake… I hasten to add that hope is never far away - but it is a distant lantern swaying precariously in the darkness." We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
For fans of: Richard Hawley, Tom Waits, Cherry Ghost
In three words: Smoky dense blast
