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Jan 09, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Anna Crolla

Scotland’s Belle and Sebastian have announced a brand new album, Late Developers, and it’s due out via Matador this Friday, only seven months since their last one came out. They have also shared its first single, “I Don’t Know What You See In Me,” via a music video. Andrew Litten directed the video, which you can watch on the band’s Facebook account here. Listen to the audio of the song below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

The band’s last album, A Bit of Previous, came out last May also via Matador. Late Developers was recorded during the same sessions.

Frontman Stuart Murdoch had this to say about “I Don’t Know What You See In Me” in a press release: “I was bicycling across Scotland last summer, listening to a mix of this song. It was written and produced for us by our friend Pete ‘Wuh Oh’ Ferguson. As I listened to it, I felt lucky to be the first person to get to sing this song. I let my voice swoop and soar in ways that it maybe hasn’t before. And as I continued through fields of gold and green I allowed myself to forget it was Belle and Sebastian, and pretend it was the latest hit on some random radio station. All music is escape, and perhaps we managed to escape a little further than usual with this unexpected tune. Thanks Pete!”

The album’s “When the Cynics Stare Back From the Wall” was written in 1994 before Belle and Sebastian formed and features Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell. “So In the Moment” was written by the band’s Stevie Jackson and is described in the press release as “breathless psychedelic pop.” Album opener “Juliet Naked” (seemingly named after Nick Hornby’s 2009 novel of the same name) is said to channel Billy Bragg, “with rugged electric guitar and a football stadium worthy chant from Stuart Murdoch.” “When We Were Very Young” is described as “Smiths-esque jangle rock that is bittersweet, devotional, and yearning.”

The press release further describes the album like so: “Arriving almost back-to-back to 2022’s Top Ten album A Bit of Previous, Late Developers comes on like its predecessor’s sun-kissed cousin. It is a full-hearted embrace of the band’s brightest tendencies that is not only fresh and immediate but possessing of that Belle and Sebastian je ne sais quoi of a group that will always be there for you with the perfect word or melody for the moment, while admitting tunefully that ‘Every girl and boy/each one is a misery’ (‘When the Cynics Stare Back From the Wall’).”

In June they shared a new song, also titled “A Bit of Previous,” but not featured on the album of the same name. Stream A Bit of Previous here and read our review of it here.

In July, Belle and Sebastian performed their first ever Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music.

A Bit of Previous was the band’s first proper full-length album in seven years. But in that time they had released EPs (plus an album that collected all the EPs), a soundtrack, and a live album. Their last regular album was 2015’s Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. In late 2017 and early 2018 Belle and Sebastian released three interconnected EPs via Matador, all titled How to Solve Your Human Problems. Then all three EPs were collected in a vinyl box set and CD compilation that came out in 2018. In 2019 they released the soundtrack for the indie film Days of the Bagnold Summer. In 2020 they released the live album, What to Look for in Summer.

Read our interview with Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch on How to Solve Your Human Problems.

Read our review of How to Solve Your Human Problems.

Read our interview with Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch on Days of the Bagnold Summer.

Late Developers Tracklist:

1. Juliet Naked
2. Give a Little Time
3. When We Were Very Young
4. Will I Tell You a Secret
5. So In the Moment
6. The Evening Star
7. When You’re Not With Me
8. I Don’t Know What You See In Me
9. Do You Follow
10. When the Cynics Stare Back From the Wall
11. Late Developers

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