Dream Pictures, the sixth album from songwriter Andrew Combs, is a dreamy, dusky record for the quiet hours that bring each day to a close.
Combs has been hailed by everyone from NPR (who hosted Combs for an acclaimed Tiny Desk performance in 2023) to Rolling Stone (who deemed him "a pop perfectionist”) and to Mojo (who wrote that "Combs’s developmental arc as a songwriter continues to soar”). He has built his career with a chameleonic sound that explores subtlety, nuance, and the grey area between folk, country, and classic pop.
With the exception of acclaimed instrumentalist Spencer Cullum, who contributed pedal steel to 10 songs, Dream Pictures was entirely recorded and performed by Combs and Billett. The two embraced all the imperfections that came with the homemade tracking process, finding the beauty in the blemishes, balancing the rawness of reel-to-reel recording with the smart finesse of Combs' songwriting. They even captured Combs' vocals with a series of live-in-the-studio performances, resisting the temptation to edit different takes together for a more polished — but admittedly less believable — product. "I love art that has just enough naivety to it, because it feels real," says Combs. "We were figuring things out as we went along. We were creating our own world."
Like a canvas splashed with watercolours, Dream Pictures is a woozy, soft-hued portrait of an artist at work, delivering well-crafted songs while embracing the new hues that occur whenever his sonic textures run together. It's music for the wee small hours, shot through with diffused daylight. A decade after his first appearance at Newport Folk Festival, Combs continues to create timeless art for modern times, blurring the dividing lines between genre and generation. Dreamy, indeed.
Support: CORMAC NAGLE
Cormac Nagle is an Americana songwriter from Bournemouth, now based in Glasgow. He blends an understated vocal drawl with timeworn melodies, uplifted by a singular, surrealistic lyrical voice. He has played shows across the UK, supporting international touring artists such as Ryley Walker, The Hanging Stars, Dylan Earl, and Julianna Riolino. He has also garnered airplay on BBC Introducing and Ricky Ross from Deacon Blue's Another Country show on BBC Radio Scotland.
2024 saw him release the singles Slept (Five More Minutes) and Cold Hand In Mine. He also joined acclaimed Canadian songwriter Slow Leaves on a brief UK tour and played a run of Scottish dates with award winning songwriter and author Wesley Stace (John Wesley Harding). He is currently recording a batch of songs to be released later in 2025.
"Loving that very much" - Ricky Ross from Deacon Blue on When My Baby Walks On By