MUSIC NEWS - Thomas Dolby , the iconic UK 80s songwriter, singer, musician, electronic pop-star whose smash hits She Blinded Me With Science and Hyperactive helped define the MTV generation/revolution, is preparing to end his 20-year absence from the recording scene with a new album later this year to be called; A Map of the Floating City. The new album will feature appearances by Mark Knopfler, Regina Spektor, Natalie MacMaster, Bruce Woolley and Imogen Heap. In advance of the full album, Thomas Dolby
The five time Grammy-nominated British artist quit the music business in the early 90s and spent many years in Silicon Valley, where his tech company Beatnik Inc. created the ringtone synthesizer embedded in more than 3 billion mobile phones shipped by Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and others. Now retired from Beatnik, Dolby returned to his native UK and is recording an album of brand new songs in a renewable energy-powered studio he built aboard a 1930's lifeboat in the garden of his beach house on England's North Sea coast.
Dolby explained recently that he new songs are organic and very personal. His album is a travelogue across three imaginary continents. "In Amerikana I'm reflecting with affection on the years I spent living in the USA, and my fascination with its roots music. Urbanoia is a dark place, a little unsettling . . . Im not a city person. And in Oceanea I return to my natural home on the windswept coastline. I marvel at the new landscape of the music business distribution via the Internet and recording technologies I barely dreamed of when I started out, he continues. But this album does not sound electronic at all. I have zero desire to add to the myriad of machine-based, synth-driven grooves out there. The Net has made a music career approachable for thousands of bands but I hear too few single-minded voices among them. What I do best is write songs, tell stories."
To assist in his story telling, Dolby's enlisted an impressive cast of guest musicians. Legendary guitarist Mark Knopfler helps drive the epic 17 Hills, a song about a pair of hapless lovers and a jailbreak. Natalie MacMaster, the Cape Breton fiddler, adds spice to two songs. Scottish singer Eddi Reader takes a front seat on the ethereal Oceanea with Bruce Woolley, of Camera Club adding theremin. And Regina Spektor has a cameo as an East European waitress on Evil Twin Brother.
The first EP, Amerikana, will be available on June 12 only to signed-up members of The Flat Earth Society and includes the songs Road to Reno, The Toad Lickers and 17 Hills. Two additional EPs are to follow during 2010, culminating in a physical CD release that will include additional songs and complete the set. Expect a live tour by Dolby sometime in 2011.
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