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Aug 01, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Elbow

Elbow have shared a brand new 7-minute long song “Dexter & Sinister.” It’s their first release for their new label in North America, Verve. The song features backing vocals from Jesca Hoop and is available digitally and on a one-sided 10-inch, with vinyl etching on the B-side. Listen to the track below.

The song was recorded in Hamburg at Clouds Hill Studios, which is filled with analogue equipment. The band played “Dexter & Sinister” live in the room.

Keyboardist and producer Craig Potter had this to say about the song in a press release: “We haven’t sat around and played like that in a long time. The looseness in the track definitely comes from us playing live in the room and, on the second part, we decided not to play to a click to really allow the tune to breathe.”

A press release says “the track takes its title from heraldry where Dexter (Right) and Sinister (Left) represent the two sides of an escutcheon bearing a coat of arms.”

In a press release singer/lyricist Guy Garvey says the song in is “a great, big, bewildered question dealing with my feelings on Brexit, the loss of family and friends and the general sense of disaffection you see all around at the moment.”

Elbow’s last album, their seventh, Little Fictions, was released in 2017, the same year they released a best of compilation, fittingly titled The Best Of.

Read our interview with Elbow’s Guy Garvey on Little Fictions.

Also read our 2014 print article on Elbow and our 2014 web-exclusive interview with Garvey on his favorite cities. Plus read our 2016 The End interview with Garvey on endings and death.

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