A lushly startling fierce panda one sheet

The Act: DESPERATE JOURNALIST

The Release: ‘IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS’

The Format: VINYL / COLOURED VINYL / COMPACT DISC / DOWNLOAD ALBUM

The Release Date: FEBRUARY 22ND 2019

The Tracklisting:
1. ‘Murmuration’
2. ‘Cedars’
3. ‘Jonatan’
4. ‘International Waters’
5. ‘Argonauts’
6. ‘Black Net’
7. ‘Ocean Wave’
8. ‘Girl Of The Houses’
9. ‘Satellite’
10. ‘To Be Forgotten’

The Truth: much-loved indiegoth dreamboats DESPERATE JOURNALIST returned to the thoroughly frayed musical fray with a brand new (and suitably autumnal) single called ‘Cedars’ on November 2nd. Next came the release of follow-up track 'Satellite' on January 11th.

Propelled along by Rob Hardy’s startlingly lush guitar and empowered by frankly cracking hooklines from singer Jo Bevan both ‘Cedars’ and 'Satellite' catch the quartet (see also: drummer Caz Hellbent and bassist Simon Drowner) further honing their sensitive-yet-crushing alt.rock sound, relishing the old school DIY dynamics but never afraid to magic up a shiny modern melody or three.

You can order 'Satellite' from smarturl.it/despj_satellite while the video for ‘Cedars’ was premiered by Louder Than War over at: https://louderthanwar.com/watch-this-new-single-from-indiegoth-dreamboats-desperate-journalist/

Better still, ‘Cedars’ and 'Satellite' are the first tracks to come from Desperate Journalist’s forthcoming third longplayer, due for release on February 22nd 2019. The album is called ‘In Search Of The Miraculous’ and is available on a veritable pawful of formats, including CD, heavyweight vinyl and limited edition coloured vinyl right now over at www.fiercepanda.co.uk

If the album title conveys a sense of wide-eyed ambition then the music on ‘In Search Of The Miraculous’ fits the plot perfectly, featuring ten tracks fizzing with creative passion, giant choruses, heroic solos and poetic intensity. “I never liked your favourite band,” sighs Bevan at one gently cutting point in ‘Jonatan’. Warning: this album contains love songs, anti-love songs and other songs wandering about, lost in an in-between-daze. It’s a bit complicated. Or in the words of singer Jo…

“I’m not going to beat around the bush: the album has a fairly high concept (or perhaps pretentious) starting point. it’s titled ‘In Search of the Miraculous’ after the artist Bas Jan Ader’s several works centered round his idea to sail across the Atlantic in the smallest craft ever to do so, as a piece of performance art. That action was intended as a culmination of his previous efforts in which he tried to figure out how to express the old Romantic idea of the Sublime in a modern art context, which involved various emotive but oblique actions such as documented falling, confessional crying, walking around his hometown of Los Angeles at night searching for an unnamed person whilst listening to a pop song, and reading aloud from an article about a boy falling off Niagara Falls - man clearly after my own dramatic, melancholic heart.

“Because I imbue everything in my life with huge portentous OTT meaning and because I was going through a big new beginning in my personal life which involved a bit of a leap of faith, these ideas particularly resonated with me when we were writing the record (and they still do). When Bas Jan Ader did attempt his trip across the ocean he ended up lost at sea, which was personally tragic but which does in a way give the artwork even more weight - that old idea of the Sublime is (as far as I understand it at least) this elemental perfection of extreme feeling that by definition can’t be fully achieved or realised by humans, only by nature - and the way he documented it proved how much of a powerful and brave/naive idea it was for him to pursue. So this is me applying my personal drama and internal feelings to that.

“It’s an album about the terrifying beauty of hope, and the excitement of possibility. And love. Because it always does come back to that really, if I’m honest.”

Having recently indiepopped up supporting the likes of The Wedding Present and Marion and headlined a special pre-Christmas Stoke Newington underplay Desperate Journalist have confirmed these live shows for 2019 here:

FEBRUARY 9TH – MADRID WURLITZER BALLROOM

FEBRUARY 22ND - LONDON ROUGH TRADE EAST INSTORE

MARCH 14TH BIRMINGHAM HARE & HOUNDS
+ The Proctors - www.facebook.com/theproctors/
+ Modern Literature - www.facebook.com/Modern-Literature-690847794623363/

MARCH 15TH MANCHESTER DEAF INSITUTE
+ Dear Caroline - www.facebook.com/DearCAROLINEuk/
+ The Empty Page - www.facebook.com/thmptypg/

MARCH 16TH GLASGOW BROADCAST
+ Life Model - www.facebook.com/LifeModelMusic/
+ Nasari - www.facebook.com/NasariBand/

MARCH 21ST BRISTOL EXCHANGE
+ She Makes War - www.facebook.com/SheMakesWar/
+ Oh, The Guilt - www.facebook.com/OhTheGuiltMusic/

MARCH 22ND NOTTINGHAM THE BODEGA
+ I Am Lono - www.facebook.com/iamlonoband/
+ Dear Caroline - www.facebook.com/DearCAROLINEuk/

MARCH 23RD LEEDS LENDING ROOM
+ Dactylion - www.facebook.com/dactylionband/
+ Strelka - www.facebook.com/helloSTRELKA/

APRIL 5TH LONDON HIGHBURY THE GARAGE
+ She Makes War - www.facebook.com/SheMakesWar/
+ PROJECTOR - www.facebook.com/projectormusic/

German Tour
8th May – Hamburg - Hafenklang
9th May – Cologne - MTC
10th May – Stuttgart - Merlin
11th May – Munster - Gleiss 22

"Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for the next big thing? You’ve never had to wait. They’re here. They have been for a while..."
Live review from The, uh, Waiting Room 11.12.18 by www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk

www.desperatejournalist.co.uk
www.fiercepanda.co.uk