Blue Violet return with 'Human After All', a one off single that lands ahead of their new album announcement.
‘Human After All’ is an upbeat, synth-leaning track with anthropologist themes. It is, says Sarah McGrigor – crystalline singer of Scottish-French-Moroccan heritage – “about individuals and the collective. Not thinking that you have a big impact as a small individual, but actually, if everybody has the same viewpoint then we can achieve big things.”
The single’s release follows Blue Violet returning to the stage earlier this week (March 25), when they were invited to play a song with The Gaslight Anthem at London’s Roundhouse. “I remember first discovering The Gaslight Anthem the old way,’” says guitarist and co-singer Sam Gotley. “I was in HMV going through the CDs and heard their track ‘Miles Davis & the Cool’ come on so I asked the cashier who they were.
“From then on they were my favourite band so it’s a real full circle moment to have been asked to perform with them at the legendary Camden Roundhouse. The band were super nice and treated us like one of their own. It was amazing to share the stage with them and perform “Here’s Lookin at You Kid”, a song we used to play all the time at open mic when we were first starting out.””
Listen to ‘Human After All’ by Blue Violet on the Shoot Music New Releases Playlist on Spotify.
Blue Violet – Blue for their melancholic element, Violet for the vividness – released their debut album Late Night Calls in April 2022. Full of lustrous atmospheres and Lynchian drama, it was recorded pre-pandemic with PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi and Marianne Faithful producer Rob Ellis. By the time world events finally allowed the record to emerge the planet had revolved to echo the record’s light-through-the-darkness message.
“Some of the themes were quite depressing,” Sarah says of an album which beatifically tackled inequality, climate change, addiction, internal struggle and youth activism. “But there was always that element of hope, whether it’s a musical uplift or whether it’s a lyrical uplift.”
Amid tours with Tidelines, The Last Internationale and Kula Shaker – and with support from Radio X, 6 Music and BBC Radio Scotland – a lockdown-recorded EP Love, Hate & Forgiveness followed that October, expanding on the album’s immersive sonics and, in the elegant ‘Favourite Jeans’, the story of the troubled protagonist from early single ‘Rabbit Hole’.
With a new album to be announced imminently, Blue Violet continue their exploration of rich electronic avenues inspired by Calvi, St Vincent, Radiohead, Bowie, recent Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Twin Peaks. “There were a couple of songs on the first album – ‘White Beaches’, ‘Hard Rain’, ‘Poster Girl’ – that had already been messing around a little bit with synths,” says Sam.
