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CMU Approved
Approved: Night Works
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 2 April 2019
It has been what I think anyone would reasonably call “a while” since Gabriel Stebbing’s excellent debut album as Night Works, 2013’s ‘Urban Heat Island’.
Not that the former Metronomy member has been procrastinating all that time. Work on the Christine And The Queens’ debut album, ‘Chaleur Humaine’, turned into a position in her live band that occupied him ever longer as that album’s success grew internationally.
And all that activity roughly brings us up to the present day, where Stebbing has gathered together the loose ends of the Night Works project and returned to it once again. His re-arrival is announced by new single ‘The Weapon’, taken from upcoming EP ‘Stuck On Broadway’. The track presents a confident sound and approach to recording, which leaves the song plenty of space in which to breath.
“It feels like a massive relief to be sharing my own music again after years as a collaborator”, he says. “Although the genesis of this song dates right back to when I was recording the first Christine And The Queens album. ‘The Weapon’ comes from a time in my life when I felt all at sea, so there’s something relevant about the way it’s finally been released into these disorientating times, and that the video panned out the way it did”.
That video saw Stebbing and filmmaker Antonia Luxem take a trip out to the large wind farm that sits on the horizon off the coast at Margate – a journey not quite as simple as they first imagined.
“Antonia suggested shooting at the Thanet Offshore Wind Array, as it was something she’d wanted to do for a long time”, he explains. “There was only one skipper in Ramsgate who was brave/crazy enough to take us out there in mid-December – props to skipper Roger and Deckhand Dan of the Skerry Belle for navigating us there and back in one piece. By the time we got there it was gusting force seven, and Antonia was clinging on for dear life with one hand and filming with other – a health and safety nightmare. I was feeling pretty green around the gills at that point. But it’s worked out magically”.
Watch the video for ‘The Weapon’ here;
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