Richard Dawson has announced his latest LP, End of the Middle, which will be released on February 14 via Domino. The follow-up to 2022’s The Ruby Cord is led by the single ‘Polytunnel’, which arrives with a video directed by James Hankins. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.
“I think I know what’s happening in the song, but hopefully that’ll be different for each person listening,” Dawson said in a statement. “I like that the line ‘Out the gate and down the lane’ – it could mean going down the allotment, or it could mean going somewhere else. Tunnel is obviously a very loaded word. There’s possibly a lot of drama happening outside of the lines of the song…. Or not. It might just be a song about an allotment.”
Introducing End of the Middle, he shared: “I wanted this album to be small-scale and very domestic. To be stripped back, reconnect with the basics and let everything speak for itself – to be really stark and naked by just putting the words and melodies out there.”
“It zooms in quite close-up to try and explore a typical middle class English family home,” he added. “We’re listening to the stories of people from three or four generations of perhaps the same family. But really, it’s about how we break certain cycles. I think the family is a useful metaphor to examine how things are passed on generationally.”
End of the Middle Cover Artwork:
End of the Middle Tracklist:
1. Bolt
2. Gondola
3. Bullies
4. The question
5. Boxing Day sales
6. Knot
7. Polytunnel
8. Removals van
9. More than Real
