Singer, producer and songwriter Tommy Barlow returns with ‘Bill Is Dead’, his new single and accompanying Josh Renaut directed music video, released today. Like his previous single ‘Earth Killer’ and ‘Won’t You Ever Need Me’, Barlow’s resonant, gravelly low bass-baritone vocals once again anchor the track with an effortless weight. His music feels unmistakably contemporary: a kind of digital, half-lit world-building that coalesces with the traditional folk music he grew up around in a musical family just outside Cambridge. His deep, gravelly voice recalls Leonard Cohen, set against a sense of aggressive euphoria that gives the songs their particular charge.
Reaction to ‘Earth Killer’ and ‘Wont You Ever Need Me’ confirmed Barlow as one of UK music’s most compelling new arrivals. The FADER described the track as “minimal and churning… layered vocals give the generally austere track a wider cinematic frame that feels like it’s queuing up the end credits.” Wonderland called him “a special new find… subtly intoxicating, centred around his deep, broody vocals that sit somewhere between mark william lewis and King Krule.” Live, So Young Magazine captured a Great Escape set that was “equal parts bleeding heart catharsis and equal parts ghostly flashes of sound.”
Now, Barlow announces his first UK & EU headline tour this spring – a run of dates he predicts will be “huge epic shows… loud to quiet to loud again.” Support slots with By Storm (formerly Injury Reserve) and Chanel Beads, and recent festival appearances at The Great Escape, Dot To Dot and Sounds From The Other City have laid the groundwork. Tomorrow night he will be supporting Model/Actriz at London’s ICA. These shows are his.
Stream / download ‘Bill Is Dead’ here.
