Distinguished song craftsmen Tom Baxter made his long-awaited return to record on October 5, 2018 with his first official release in a decade, The Other Side of Blue. Baxter will support the new release with a full UK/IRE tour, taking in a date at London’s Union Chapel on November 6, 2018.
It was in 2008 that Tom brought out the self-funded Skybound, the follow-up to the 2004 Feather & Stone, which first alerted the wider world to his singular talent for emotionally immersive composition. Since then, he’s released one fan-only album, travelled, been through plenty of soul-searching and emerged at the other end with what may well be his best-ever work.
Baxter made his name with such heart-stopping originals as ‘Better,’ ‘Almost There’ and ‘Day in Verona,’ and his songs have been covered by or admired by artists including Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright & Dame Shirley Bassey, alongside a steadfast set of fans who’ve been waiting for word of his next adventure for more than a while.
They won’t be disappointed. The Other Side of Blue is Baxter’s most searingly personal work to date, performed entirely solo and with gorgeous illustration on guitar and piano. It’s a beautiful and elegant return to his very core as a songwriter. “I feel like I’ve been through a very slow metamorphosis over the years,” he says. “Even I’m not sure into what, but I can say I’m calmer inside, and I thought it was time for a full-on new release.”
While other artists rush so readily to provide the personal information that feeds the beast of self-promotion, Tom has kept his counsel, determined to be defined only by his music, and at his own pace. But it has been a tumultuous ten years. He married the long-time girlfriend for whom he wrote the Ivor Novello Award-nominated ‘Better,’ but then endured a divorce and, more recently, was happily remarried. Along the way, he lived in Devon, travelled to India, Los Angeles, Spain and then to Brazil, the place that inspired him to find the impetus to write again.
The new album is entirely free of “production camouflage,” as he puts it, and is underpinned by ‘The Ballad of Davey Graham,’ the song he was inspired to write after a request to play at the unveiling of a blue plaque for the great guitar pioneer of the title. In a moment of pure serendipity, Davey’s partner had written to request Tom’s contribution because Graham was not only an admirer of his, but she revealed that Baxter’s music was the last that Davey had listened to.
What they didn’t know is that the revelation completed a perfect circle, because Davey had been one of the very inspirations for Baxter to pick up a guitar in the first place. Tom duly paid back the compliment by playing at the ceremony, and found that the whole experience refuelled his creative spirits to remarkable effect. He went on to finish what has become The Other Side Of Blue with a renewed sense of his place in the musical ecosystem. As he describes the record himself, “there’s no bells or whistles. Just me, myself and I, with absolutely nowhere to hide.”
Baxter’s albums have always enveloped the listener with a delicious intensity, and so it is again on The Other Side of Blue, which takes us from the heart-wrenching title track and others such as ‘For Crying Out Loud,’ to the more positive place that Baxter now himself inhabits, expressed in the gentle optimism of ‘When I’m In Your Hands.’
An English original has returned.
2018 UK/IRE Dates
Nov 2 | The Stables, Milton Keynes | https://bit.ly/2JxKZUR
Nov 3 | The Hat Club, Beaconsfield |
Nov 4 | Chapel Arts, Bath | https://bit.ly/2Jzwlwt
Nov 6 | Union Chapel, London | https://bit.ly/2LwbQhF
Nov 7 | Glee Club Main Room, Birmingham | https://bit.ly/2t9R7IN
Nov 8 | Selby Town Hall, Selby | https://bit.ly/2JrXC0I
Nov 21 | St David’s Hall, Cardiff | https://bit.ly/2sLSbT6
Nov 22 | RNCM, Manchester | https://bit.ly/2kVKA0J
Nov 24 | Kings Somborne Village Hall, Kings Somborne |
Nov 26 | Town Hall, Leeds | https://bit.ly/2JCJpkH
Nov 27 | Corn Exchange, Cambridge | https://bit.ly/2Jj1aWK
The Other Side Of Blue will be released via The Orchard
He discovered the gem when he was 12 years old and still has it now, claiming it to be why he fell in love with music. He likes to play disc golf when he's not writing about music. He is a one-of-a-kind individual who is always the first to bust out his air guitar on the dance-floor.