Belle and Sebastian have announced their first proper studio album in seven years. The follow-up to 2015’s “Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance” is called “A Bit of Previous” and it’s out May 6th on Matador Records. They’ve also shared the first single, “Unnecessary Drama,” with a video that finds the band, well, trying to be a band again—lots of team-building exercises!
“The song is about a young person experimenting in being a human again after a forced hiatus,” vocalist Stuart Murdoch explained. “The person is weighing up whether or not it’s worth the mess! Still, you dip your toe in and it becomes delicious, and you get too much of it. Between trouble and nothing, we still choose the trouble.”
“A Bit of Previous” was recorded in their hometown of Glasgow after the pandemic disrupted their plans to travel to Los Angeles in 2020. “We did it together, us and the city,” Murdoch said. “This record was the first ‘full’ LP recording for B&S in Glasgow since “Fold Your Hands Child“, [recorded in] 1999. We clocked in every morning, we played our songs, we wrote together, we tried new things, we took the proverbial lump of clay, and we threw it every day.”
The Fat Angel Sings 