Ben Watt

BERNARD BUTLER CONFIRMED TO PLAY ON ALL DATES OF BEN WATT'S NOVEMBER SOLO UK TOUR

With his recent return to songwriting and guitar-playing triggering an unexpected new solo studio album due for next spring produced by Ewan Pearson, Ben Watt is now excited to announce that current collaborator and acclaimed guitarist Bernard Butler will be joining him on the whole of his upcoming November solo tour of the UK.

'Bernard was one of the first people I turned to when embarking on this new road,' says Watt. 'His grainy sound in the perfect foil to my new open-tuned approach, and when he played unannounced on the recent sold-out London shows in August, it was just a great fit. He is playing a prominent role on the current album, and now to have him play with me onstage on all of these November dates is fantastic news. The combined sound is incredibly atmospheric and heart-felt. An amazing backdrop for the songs.'

The tour - which showcases much of Ben's new material and revisits several songs from his very early days

Don't miss these two great guitarists and performers together.

He may have been an in-demand DJ and respected record label boss of late, but it has been thirteen years since Ben Watt last sang and played live with a simple microphone and guitar - not since he and partner Tracey Thorn parked their long-term band Everything But The Girl in 2000. As for solo gigs, you have to go back thirty years to 1983, to find a date when Ben last performed live - as far back in fact, as the days when he was making left-field folk-jazz recordings like 'Summer Into Winter' and 'North Marine Drive' as a precocious 19 year-old for London indie label, Cherry Red, with stellar collaborators like Robert Wyatt, Kevin Coyne and Peter King.

But with the partial closure of his ten year-old electronic record label, Buzzin' Fly back in March, Ben announced he was intent on finding time for his own work again. Sure enough, a new book, 'Romany and Tom' (about his parents' lives and the post-war years - the follow-up to 1996's acclaimed 'Patient') is promised for February 2014 publication by Bloomsbury; and for music fans he has returned to songwriting and his often-missed guitar-playing with a new solo album planned for release next spring.

'I got to a crossroads and found I wanted to go back to some of my earliest influences,' he says, 'and try to carve out a new sound with new tunings on my guitar and simple direct songs. I realised I wanted to connect with people through words again not just music and beats, while finding new forward-looking ways to play them.'

For the first time in years he will play solo in a series of low-key dates as he makes his way back to live performance.