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: JACK FRANCIS
Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jack Francis' second album 'Early Retirement' is another example of his impressive work. Shining a spotlight on Francis' unique brand of Soulful Folk, 'Early Retirement' explores a broad range of influences, touching on great British, Irish and American songwriting. The lyrical content demonstrates the writer's acerbic wit and attention to detail and compounds his experience navigating modern society and fallen dreams.
The singles have already been picked up on national radio and have been championed by the likes of BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio Scotland.
Jack's reputation as a stunning live performer has also put him in good company, opening for the likes of Flyte, Miles Hunt and Courtney Marie Andrews to name a couple, whilst also appearing at several festivals across the UK and Europe.