Looks like Turin Brakes are ready to announce a UK tour, since  a whole set of dates is about to go on sale this Friday! All this to promote the next studio album, We Were Here.

Alt-tickets.co.uk has a big list and there’s dates on Seetickets.com as well:

UPDATED with Scottish gigs on Thursday 6th June.

Stop The World strings

Blindsided strings

The album is scheduled for mid-August release and will be released on Cooking Vinyl, just like Outbursts.

Here’s that title track live in Sydney:

(as soon as the session becomes available on demand I’ll post it on the site)

Tickets for the family friendly festival are available from 10 GBP (for children aged 5-15) and 35 GBP (single, early-bird, weekend ticket for adults).

The Staves are an acoustic folk trio of sisters who released their debut record Dead & Born & Grown last year. On their new EP Facing West they covered Turin Brakes live favourite Rain City. The EP is out now and contains three songs, including the Turin Brakes cover.

Those who follow Olly / Turin Brakes on Twitter might have heard of The Staves before, as Olly has tweeted about them in the past. Their debut album was produced by Ethan Johns, who produced Dark on Fire.

Get the song on Amazon - or iTunes

Or listen to The Staves on Spotify

Guess You’ve Heard (described during the recording sessions: like late 70’s West Coast warm ness (if that rings any bells))

We Were Here (title unconfirmed, Feeling Oblivion type structure, bolder vocals and harmonies)

Time and Money (previewed earlier, before the album session)

Check out the other videos (including Stalker, 72, Underdog and Feeling Oblivion here!

That’s the moment we’re in right now. The quiet before the storm, but the signs of the storm are already there: increased touring activity (the Australian tour starts later this week), an album recorded (and mixed) and a less active Twitter account, as if someone’s afraid to spill the beans on new album information. Yet, there’s also more press interviews leaking tiny little details of the new album.

THIS is probably one of the more frustrating moments in a music fan’s release cycle. You know there’s new music there, but you can’t hear it. It gets worse / better as soon as any announcements are made (depending on whether they include a single or snippet) and it gets somewhat soothed as soon as live versions of new material pop up on YouTube. (WE’RE COUNTING ON YOU AUSTRALIA!)

And this time it feels worse. When Outbursts was released, I felt like I knew where the guys were headed. I had heard three different songs of the new album live (Sea Change, Paper Heart and Never Stops) and thus I could sort of feel where the guys were going. Or pretend to (Outbursts turned out to have many different layers). For all we know, we might be 4-5 months away from a new album and we don’t know a title and all we can go on are the few YouTube recordings that are out there and the many pictures from the studio recording sessions… And they don’t tell me much. For all we know the vibe in the studio was very different when they recorded songs like Time & Money and Sleeper.

So I have no clue what kind of album we’ll get come late Summer 2013. It’s been over 3 years since Outbursts and that’s a heck of a long time. It’ll be sonically interesting (there’ll be saxophones and banjos and even guitars ). And Little Phil will play some piano like in the good old days! If they’ve done it right, they’re cooking up a right storm that can be turned into a crazy energetic live show and a great record…

And in that case, we really are in the quiet before the storm…

You’ve recently been recording your new album which is set for an August release. What can we expect from it?

If you’re a Turin Brakes fan, like I am, you won’t be disappointed.

We went to an analogue tape studio (like the old days) to capture some of those old limitations. We ended up with what could have been a direct follow up to our first album from 2001 with a slightly psychedelic tinge. You can expect a good listen from start to finish. An album rather than a collection singles with lots of depth and without any boring bits, honest.

Have you been doing anything differently with this album?

The main thing was imposing limitations. With a laptop you can do anything, including make a recording of a song that you’ve never played from start to finish! Which has its place but we were sure we wanted to go back to a canvas rather than a computer screen and embrace that.

Do you have a particular song that is always your favourite to play at a show?

I’m looking forward to busting out ‘Blindsided’ or ‘Inbetween’ from the new album. ‘Blindsided’ being a bit of wobbly psychedelic. It’s always nice to get that connection when you play some favourites too. There are bands we love too so we’re aware how important it is to hear stuff you know and love.

Full article here!

On show here are their versions of some classic songs that in one way or another influenced the Turin Brakes sound. Call it folk rock, call it acoustic psychedelia, call it what you like, you will find the same imaginative, grooving soulful exploration of the human condition that you can find on all Turin Brakes records and in their live shows.

As well as an original song “Rescue Squad” that fuses the economic downturn with tales of Bonnie and Clyde, of all things we have an amazing version of “Chim Chim Cher-ee” that starts off like a delicate goose pimply sonic spider-web only to explode into quite outrageous space rock! But don’t worry “74-75″ and “Ricky Don’t Lose That Number” soon bring you back safely to earth, warm in the knowledge that these boys have the ability to surprise and comfort all at the same time.

No doubt, the boys will bring the cd version to Australia, where it’ll be on sale at tour dates. But if you can’t wait (and Rescue Squad really is an excellent new song!) you can go ahead and buy it now.

No word on whether the digital release will be extended to other countries…

(…) ‘Outbursts’ was made with laptops across a whole year, at home and our little studio. The new album is currently being tracked to analogue tape in just two weeks at a wonderful old studio in the countryside with our live band; a totally different approach for a totally different sound and feel. With this album we’re trying to bring back an acoustic rawness we had on our first album as well as the energy and groove of our live band.

Full thing here.