Graham Coxon And Rose Elinor Dougall Collaborate On ‘The WAEVE’

Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall who
collaborated on ‘The WAEVE’, has announced the release of their debut tune as
well as a small London launch concert.

The former Blur
guitarist-turned-solo star and the former Pipettes member-turned-Mark Ronson
collaborator and singer-songwriter will debut their material 'Something Pretty'
via Transgressive Records on 5^th May.

On the 4th of May, they'll perform a special launch show at ‘The Lexington’ in London. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning 22nd April.

“We are greatly
looking forward to unleashing our new sound live at the Lexington next month,”
the new band said in a statement.

“We’ve been locked
away this year, busy translating the varied sounds of our songs into a dynamic
live show, with the help of some great musician friends. We invite you to
surrender to the world of The WAEVE.”

The duo came together
after exchanging messages during the lockdown Christmas of 2020. They soon
started writing songs before their collaboration “gave rise to an unexpected
sonic universe”, a statement explains.

Inspired by “a shared love of English folk music, storytelling and the associated landscapes of this beleaguered island,” their music soon turned into something of their own, with “a cinematic breadth whilst maintaining an honest intimacy” and “guitars, saxophones AND strings lifting the songs into other stratospheres”. Their upcoming music is said to speak to “themes of oblivion and surrender, juxtaposed with suggestions of hopefulness and light”.

Coxon teased more Blur
activity and released the comic book score album 'Superstate' last year. Blur
guitarist Damon Albarn told NME that the band had been in negotiations and
"had an idea" of how to reunite after bandmate Damon Albarn said that
the band had been in talks and "had an idea" of how to do so: “I was
privy to that discussion. It started as a discussion, but didn’t really end as
one.”

Asked if he was too busy with various projects to pursue a Blur reunion, he told us: “Having a lot on your plate is a sort of chaos. It’s like a massive English breakfast at the moment. If someone snuck on a grilled tomato I probably wouldn’t notice. I’m up for it, if everyone digs the idea.”

“I think a lot of
people have decided in some sort of way that they were living life in a really
strange way that wasn’t actually suiting them very well and chopped away a lot
of the stuff that they don’t need. I’ve been trying to do that a little bit.”

Coxon added: “That’s always been the thing with Blur – they’ll do it when they really need to and not for any other reason. It doesn’t really seem genuine to just get back together and just do gigs for a bit of sondage. We need to have some sort of focus for how we would work.”

-- Aditi Manjunath