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Oct 04, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Ed Harcourt

British singer/songwriter/pianist Ed Harcourt has announced a new album, Beyond the End, and shared a video for its first single, “Duet For Ghosts.” Beyond the End is due out November 23 via Point of Departure. It’s Harcourt’s first instrumental album. Watch the “Duet For Ghosts” video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

Beyond the End is Harcourt’s eighth full-length album and the follow-up to 2016’s Furnaces.

In a press release Harcourt discusses why he chose to record an instrumental album: “The world that we live in, we’re exhausted by the internet, social media, the sheer barrage of news and vomit being rained down us on a daily basis. You can’t avoid it, and it’s tiring. So this record came from taking a step back - it’s something that’s trying to be beautiful. My hope is that people might choose to swim amongst this music when it all gets too much.”

Beyond the End was written and recorded at Harcourt’s Wolf Cabin studio in Oxfordshire. His wife, Gita Langley, plays violin and Amy Langley plays cello on the album.

Harcourt had this to say about recording the album: “I knew I wanted to buy a new piano. Eventually I found this 1910 Hopkinson Baby Grand, which is exactly the same make and era as my grandmother’s piano which I started learning on and wrote my first three records on. I felt at home again. I needed a break from singing and lyrics so I began writing instrumental music. I grew up listening to and playing Debussy, Satie, Mozart, Grieg, as well as modern composers like Max Richter, Philip Glass, Arvo Part. I also loved Warren Ellis and Nick Cave’s score for The Assassination of Jesse James. So from around February I’d get up on the cold mornings, have a coffee after the kids had gone to school, then come in here, shut the door, just play…with the snow coming down outside the window. When I found something I thought worked, I’d play it over and over again…”

In the press release Harcourt sums up his intentions with Beyond the End: “It’s not contrived, this. It’s come from the heart. I feel like someone might enjoy it on headphones while walking around an unfamiliar city for the first time.”

Beyond the End Tracklist:

1. Diving Bell
2. Wolves Change Rivers
3. Duet For Ghosts
4. Empress of the Lake
5. Keep Us Safe
6. Faded Photographs
7. For My Father
8. For My Mother
9. Beneath the Brine
10. There Is Still a Fire
11. Circling Red Kites
12. Whiskey Held My Sleep to Ransom

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