Andrew Combs announces new album "Ideal Man" and confirms Europe tour in November/December
19-06-2019Nashville based singer/songwriter Andrew Combs has announced his new album, Ideal Man, to be released on September 20th via New West Records. Ideal Man was produced by Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Benjamin Booker) and follows Combs’ critically acclaimed 5 Covers & A Song EP, which featured his interpretations of songs by The Strokes, Radiohead, Blake Mills, Lucinda Williams, and Loudon Wainwright III.
While Combs may be best known as a singer/songwriter in the classic 1970s Laurel Canyon sense of the term, he proves the true versatility of his work here, often setting his acoustic aside in favor of atmospheric synthesizers and distorted electric guitars. Captured live in Cohen’s Brooklyn studio, Ideal Man also features Combs’ longtime collaborators, drummer Dom Billet and guitarist/keyboardist/bassist Jerry Bernhardt.
Enamoured with the fresh creative avenues that his recent fascination with painting opened up for him, Combs applied the same approach to his music, beginning songs with an emotion rather than a concept and treating lyrical and melodic ideas as raw material that could be added to or layered over at any point. When he heard the finished recordings, the songs in turn suggested entire canvases in his mind, and Combs began work on a series of oil paintings designed to accompany each track on the album. He plans on presenting the album and the paintings together in a gallery show surrounding the album release. Fatherhood is another obvious source for Combs’ change in perspective, and the record reflects the emotional rollercoaster that comes with raising a child in such turbulent times. No longer simply an observer documenting the world as he sees it, he finds himself thrust into the role of protector and guardian on these songs, which means that joy and hope often come packaged with fear and frustration, anger and anxiety. A sense of danger and violence underlies the entire record, much as it does the entire country, but it only serves to make the moments of beauty and connection here that much more poignant.
Combs first began garnering national attention for his music with the release of Worried Man, his acclaimed 2012 debut. The record earned Combs a slot at the iconic Newport Folk Festival, alongside dates with Shovels & Rope and Houndmouth, and prompted American Songwriter to proclaim that “[as far as] first albums go, it’ll be tough to beat this as one of the year’s finest.” Combs followed it up in 2015 with the similarly well-received All These Dreams, which landed him performances with Kacey Musgraves and Eric Church among others, and then signed to New West Records in 2017 for his breakout third album, Canyons Of My Mind. Songs from that record racked up more than 15 million streams on Spotify and prompted rave reviews from Rolling Stone and NPR, who hailed him as “one of Nashville's most poetically gifted young singer-songwriters.”
Andrew Combs will be touring Europe in support of Ideal Man in November and December. Now announced and on sale are dates in Spain, UK, Ireland and The Netherlands:
TOURDATES:
27/11: Zaragoza, ESP - Rock & Blues Café
28/11: Madrid, ESP - Sala Siroco / Momentos Alhambra Música
29/11: Santiago, ESP - Riquela Club / Outono Codax Festival
01/12: Bilbao, ESP - Kafe Antzokia-Kutxa Beltza
02/12: Santander, ESP - Cine Groucho / Cajas de Música
04/12: Biddulph, UK - St Lawrence’s Church
05/12: Edinburgh, UK - Pleasance Cabaret Bar
06/12: Glasgow, UK - CCA
07/12: Kilkenny, IRL - Cleeres
08/12: Dublin, IRL - Lost Lane
09/12: Bristol, UK - Louisiana
10/12: London, UK - The Lexington
11/12: Utrecht, NL - TivoliVredenburg
12/12: Amen, NL - Café de Amer
13/12: Rotterdam, NL - Stille Nacht