Jarvis Cocker has announced he’s releasing a new album with Chilly Gonzales.
The Pulp frontman made the revelation when he teased fans with a video trailer for the LP on Friday (27.01.17) which showed him entering a room numbered 29.
Entitled ‘Room 29’, the album is centred on a "song-cycle concerning the goings-on in Room 29 of the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood" and will be released on March 17 on Deutsche Grammophon.
Speaking about the new material, Cocker said: "For the duration of one evening the entire audience will be occupants of ‘Room 29’. You will be greeted by our concierge and you will be given a key. Sit down, get comfortable – it will be our pleasure to serve up a night of entertainment like no other: ‘Room 29’ may be a real location in Hollywood, California – but it is also a place within each one of us. Through this collection of songs we hope to open the door to that room for all those of you who wish to explore it. How’s that for Room Service?"
It’s not the first time the pair have worked together – their three-year collaboration followed their previous project working together on a cover of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘I’m Still Here’ for a short film called Six By Sondheim by Todd Haynes in 2012.
For this new project the duo teamed up with long-term Gonzales collaborator Renaud Letang to record the tracks at Ferber Studios in Paris, which feature simply piano and vocals, with the Kaiser Quartett adding strings to several tracks.
Cocker continued: "Featuring contributions from film historian David Thomson and the stories of famous former occupants of the room such as Jean Harlow and Howard Hughes, the show will also attempt to unpick the way a heady concoction dreamt up in the immediate vicinity of the hotel went on to intoxicate the entire population of planet Earth. Or, (to quote the sub-title of David Thomson’s book The Big Screen): it is also the story of the movies and what they did to us."
Other musicians also featured on the record include the Macedonian symphonic orchestra, Macedonia flautist Nathalie Hauptman, French horn player Hasko Kroeger and soprano singer Maud Techa.
To promote the new album, Cocker and Gonzalez will return to the venue where they premiered the album back in January 2016 – Hamburg’s Kampnagel – to play the finished album over three nights on from March 17 to March 19.
They will also play London’s Barbican Theatre from March 23-25 and the Berlin Volksbühne on March 28-30, in Paris and at festivals over the summer.
Jarvis Cocker to release new album with Chilly Gonzales
