Toronto-born, London-based singer-songwriter Tess Parks has announced her first solo album since 2013’s Blood Hot. It’s called And Those Who Were Seen Dancing and it comes out May 20 via Fuzz Club Records. Today, Parks has shared the record’s first single, ‘Happy Birthday Forever’, alongside an accompanying video made from footage of her at ballet classes as a child. Check it out and find the album’s cover art and tracklist below.
“In my mind, this album is like hopscotch,” Parks said of And Those Who Were Seen Dancing in a statement. “These songs were pieced together over time in London, Toronto and Los Angeles with friends and family between August 2019 and March 2021. So many other versions of these songs exist. The recording and final completion of this album took over two years and wow – the lesson I have learned the most is that words are spells. If I didn’t know it before, I know it now for sure. I only want to put good out into the universe.”
Of the new track, she added: “These lyrics were written when I was living on Henshaw Street in Elephant and Castle in 2009. I think I used to play this at some of my first solo shows in London. In late August 2019, I brought the words to Ruari [Meehan]’s, and him and Francesco [Perini] had already made this amazing music so I sang over it and then later, Josh [Korody] added the awesome beat that comes in. The song was very cleverly and surprisingly originally titled ‘Get Me Out Of Here’, and one day in October 2020 my sister, Isabella, was driving us home from a mixing session and I saw a license plate that said ‘GMOOH’, which is how I always used to abbreviate it, so I was like, ‘Okay, I’m definitely on the right path, I must be. Gotta finish this album’.”
In recent years, Tess Parks has released a series of collaborations with Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe, most recently the duo’s self-titled 2018 LP.
And Those Who Were Seen Dancing Cover Artwork:
And Those Who Were Seen Dancing Tracklist:
1. Wow
2. Suzy & Sally’s Eternal Return
3. Happy Birthday Forever
4. We Are The Music Makers And We Are The Dreamers Of Dream
5. Brexit at Tiffany’s
6. Old Life
7. Do You Pray?
8. Good Morning Glory
9. I See Angels
10. Saint Michael
