Matt Langley Announces New Album + Tour

Dunedin based singer-songwriter Matt Langley has announced the release of new album Virginia Avenue this May. Following up his acclaimed 2010 debut release Featherbones, the new album features an all star cast of local musicians including Riki Gooch (Trinity Roots, Eru Dangerspiel), Tom Callwood (The Phoenix Foundation) and Tom Watson (Cassette, Fly My Pretties). To celebrate the release, Langley is heading out on a nationwide tour during May - here are the details followed by the current single from the album:

Matt Langley Virginia Avenue Album Release Tour

Friday 3rd May, Chicks Hotel, Dunedin w/ The Shifting Sands
Saturday 4th May, Naval Point Yacht Club, Lyttelton w/ Adam McGrath (The Eastern)
Sunday 5th May, Kings Arms, Auckland w/ Bernie Griffen & Kirsten Warner
Thursday 9th May, Mighty Mighty, Wellington w/ Darren Watson

Tickets for all shows are on sale now from HERE at UTR and you can pick up a copy of the new album at the same time for an extra special price.

Press Release:

Matt Langley announces 'Virginia Avenue' Album Release and Tour in May

Matt Langley will release his highly anticipated sophomore album Virginia Avenue on May 3rd and take his band on the road to celebrate.

Presented by Groove Guide, Radio 1, RDU, and Radio Active, in association with bFM, the Virginia Avenue Album Release Tour includes:

Dunedin - Friday 3rd May - Chicks Hotel w/ The Shifting Sands
Lyttleton - Saturday 4th May - Naval Point Yacht Club w/ Adam McGrath (The Eastern)
Auckland - Sunday 5th May - Kings Arms w/ Bernie Griffen & Kirsten Warner
Wellington - Thursday 9th May - Mighty Mighty w/ Darren Watson

All tickets on sale now from www.undertheradar.co.nz with option to purchase the new album.

Virginia Avenue is named after the street in Broad Bay on the Otago Peninsula where Matt lives and wrote the album. Produced by renowned pairing Brett Stanton (The Phoenix Foundation) and Riki Gooch (Trinity Roots, Eru Dangerspiel), the album also features some of New Zealand's finest musicians including Gooch on drums, Tom Callwood(Phoenix Foundation) on Bass and Thomas Watson (Cassette, Fly My Pretties) on guitars.

The album follows Langley's critically acclaimed 2010 debut Featherbones which included APRA Award winning song '7.13'. The NZ Herald said that Featherbones was "as fine a singer-songwriter debut album as you could expect" and the Sunday Star Times marvelled that "it is one of life's simple pleasures to hear a voice like this". Matt has spent the last two years touring NZ consistently with The Eastern, Darren Watson, Mel Parsons and Australian Jordie Lane, building a formidable following nationwide.

Langley took his time writing Virginia Avenue, drawing from a batch of over 50 album ready songs. While Featherbones was a genuine minimal masterpiece, Virginia Avenue is heavier, darker and dripping with quality. Themed as an actual album in form Virginia Avenue is comprised of two distinct sides complete with an instrumental ‘intermission’, it features fifteen songs that embrace the listener. Heartbreak and dark humour are embodied here… ‘life is a bad joke…and then you die.' and Langley's not afraid to push his lyrical honesty into places that we all know, places that cut ‘…Your love is dirt, the blood under my nails, the way I cling to it.’ The core band of Gooch, Callwood and Watson free up wide open spaces on tear-my-heart-out tracks like ‘Sad Sound Good’, ‘Ghost Wanted’ and ‘So It Seems’ as well as unleashing fearsome noise on the apocalyptic ‘Unto the Ends of this Earth’ before delivering the live acoustic heart ache and warm harmonies of ‘Bitter End’.