BLUE VIOLET TO MARK ‘FAUX ANIMAUX’ ALBUM RELEASE WITH JUST ROUGH TRADE INSTORE

Anne Kelly Published: January 2025 | Updated: January 2025 3 minutes read

Blue Violet (Lucy McLachlan/Northern Exposure)

North London alt-indie duo BLUE VIOLET have just announced a live performance and signing at Nottingham Rough Trade on Friday 24 January, the release date of their new album Faux Animaux on Me & My Records via High Head Recordings. The band previously announced a (now sold out) album launch show at London The Grace on Saturday 25 January and three further album launch shows in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee in early February.

Nottingham tickets available here: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb

On Faux Animaux singer Sarah McGrigor and guitarist Sam Gotley continue their exploration of rich electronic avenues inspired by Anna Calvi, St Vincent, Radiohead, Bowie and Twin Peaks. With their songwriting as sublime as ever, they’re becoming one of the most enthralling underground propositions of the age.

The duo released a flurry of singles in 2024. They began in March with one-off single Human After All during the week that they shared the stage with The Gaslight Anthem for a number of shows at the Roundhouse in London. In April they shared the forthcoming album’s lead single Boogie Shoes, a grainy glam stomp aimed midway between Queens Of The Stone Age and St Vincent. This was followed by Imagine Me – amid dark 80s electro-rock tones akin to a more seductive Depeche Mode, the track portrays a lustful temptress (groupie, cougar, stalker or lovelorn loner) frustrated that the sexual encounter she so meticulously plots is over in a flash.

Survival followed – a gentle paean channelling Metric, Mazzy Star, Cigarettes After Sex and Julee Cruise – while October saw the release of Barefoot On The Seine, a schizophrenic dispatch from the edges of a Parisian riot: its verses lost in graceful Gallic romance; its choruses all grunge rock eruptions; its whole a call to arms in support of essential personal freedoms. The next single Fire, the duo say, was “to draw attention to one of our most basic instincts – desire” then after a 20 date UK tour supporting Echobelly late last year the band released Sweet Success earlier this month, their most streamed single to date.

FAUX ANIMAUX | TRACK LISTING

Sweet Success
Imagine Me
Survival
Talking To You
The Librarian
Cold Hearts
Boogie Shoes
Fire
Teeth Out
Barefoot On The Seine
Faux Animaux

Recorded in J&J Studios in Bristol with Bat For Lashes and Hannah Peel mixer and producer TJ Allen, Faux Animaux is a unified and sophisticated update of modern British alt-pop, drifting from sizzling space disco to swirling, cinematic vistas. It’s a stunning amalgam of modernism and melody that spotlights not just failings of humankind but also those of its leaders. As Sam says: “The fake animals could be seen as the powers that be, leading us down paths that result in us ignoring our more natural instincts, often making decisions without our permission.”

Quietly, a beast awakens.