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Aug 04, 2016 By Christopher Roberts Ed Harcourt

Under the Radar has been covering British singer/songwriter Ed Harcourt since our early days. Our first print magazine issue and Harcourt’s debut album, Here Be Monsters, were both released in 2001. Fifteen years later we are both going strong and Harcourt is about to release his seventh full-length album, Furnaces, on August 19 via Polydor (we’re working on our 57th issue, keep up Harcourt!). Furnaces was produced by the great Flood, who has worked with plenty of icons: U2, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, New Order, Nine Inch Nails, PJ Harvey, a-ha, Foals, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Warpaint, to name just a few. Harcourt has already shared a regular video for the album’s title track, “Furnaces,” but we’re pleased to premiere a new live performance video for the song. No, it’s not some boring clip of Harcourt doing the song in a blank studio space. For this one his went to an iconic festival site where legends have performed.

Here, we’ll let Harcourt explain it: “When my manager suggested the idea of playing where some of the biggest pop concerts and rock gigs ever held have taken place, I thought ‘Me? With my reputation?’ and laughed it off. Then he said ‘seriously, let’s go do a gig at Knebworth.’ So I ignored my flashbacks to the mess I was in watching Oasis in my teens and those arms aloft scenes of Robbie Williams singing ‘Angels’; read up on all the shows that everyone from Zeppelin to the Stones to Queen had done in the legendary grounds of the country mansion - and finally, I gave in and decided it sounded like too big a folly to say no to…. Weeks later I found myself in an empty field, then beside a babbling brook, then surrounded by bluebells and finally, as you’ll see here, sitting on the dock of a lake with cameras pointed at my visage and a flickering candle performing a solo version of my new single ‘Furnaces.’ And technically, on that fine summer’s evening, I was headlining Knebworth.”

Watch the video below, followed by the original video for the song.

Furnaces also features Warpaint’s drummer Stella Mozgawa, The Invisible’s bassist Tom Herbert, vocalist Hannah Lou Clark, and percussionist Michael Blair, a frequent Tom Waits collaborator. Iconic Gonzo artist and Hunter S Thompson collaborator Ralph Steadman created the album artwork. Harcourt explained in a recent press release how that came about. “It’s a dream come true. I went down to his house and he said: ‘What do you want?’ I looked through all his books, and the weirdest thing is he has an actual painting called ‘The World Is On Fire,’ which was so bizarre,” Harcourt said, referencing the album’s opening track, also titled “The World Is On Fire.” “Sadly it was too dark to use as the cover, but I asked him for something like that. I think maybe he heard the line in ‘The World Is On Fire’ where I say: ‘I think I’m spitting out my heart.’ It looks like a cross between a tsunami of fire and someone coughing up blood.”