Hugo Race Fatalists return with new album I Made It All Up For You, out now via Gustaff Records/Helixed on CD, LP, and digital formats. After decades of exploration across genres ranging from folk, to world music and everything in between, as well as being known for both his work as part of Nick Cave’s The Bad Seeds.
Blending roots music, electronica, Italian soundtracks, and desert rock into a unique, dark, emotive and experimental sound as comparable to Leonard Cohan as it is to Nick Cave and Matt Berninger, the project has just released the new video for Born To Fly, taken from the album.
I Made It All Up For You marks Race’s return after highly successful collaborative albums with Michelangelo Russo (100 Years), The Church frontman Steve Kilbey (Speed of the Stars), and Gianni Maraccolo (The Vigil, winner of the prestigious Premio Ciampi).
The full album is a deeply existential work, exploring transformation through light and darkness, bringing organic instrumentation together with eerie, otherworldly psychedelic and reflective, heartfelt lead vocals. Indeed, this feel and sound is fully captured on the new single and video Born To Fly, which floats through swirls of undefined electric guitars, strummed acoustic, plucky bass and understated drums under the deep, gruff, delicate yet gritty and pointed lead vocals. Haunting, emotionally resonant, and
Accompanied by a fittingly dark and mysterious video, the track is given a visual aid which captures the psychedelic essence of the track through simple, yet compelling editing, as silhouettes and loose footage move across a sunset sky. Ultimately the video acts as an aid to the tension between darkness and light that Hugo Race navigates throughout I Made It All Up For You.
“I wanted to create something melodic and beautiful in defiance of our current reality,” says Hugo Race about the new album. “A lot of joy and pain and reflection went into the making of this album and I hope that comes across; this is about the darkness yes, but also the light. Everything changes and every ending is a new beginning but it’s how we experience transformation that really matters.”
The new album was recorded at a floating studio on Puccini Lake near Florence with Giovanni Ferrario (Scisma, PJ Harvey) on guitars and synth, Francesco Giampaoli (Brutture Moderne) on bass, and Diego Sapignoli (Sacri Cuori) on percussion. Violinist Massimiliano Gallo added his Calabrian magic during a short Sicilian tour. Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields lends her vocals on I Collide and Broken Love, with lyrics by Alannah Hill. Michelangelo Russo contributes electric harmonica on Against The World, Born To Fly, and Open Field.
Follow Hugo Race
The album, I Made It All Up For You, is available from Bandcamp
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All words by Simon Lucas-Hughes. More writing by Simon Lucas-Hughes can be found at his author’s archive.
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