With the same plucky introspection and softly phrased sentiments, the song calls to mind a stylistic nod to older Smiths tracks and essences of some of The Stone Roses more pensive songs. Here we see the band pushing boldly forward in a far less cutesy mood than former works. Yet still retaining the same innocence and curiosity that fans have come to love over their 26-year career.

The hand-drawn animated video was created by Graham Samuels and Henrik Appel. Belle and Sebastian’s lead singer Stuart Murdoch came up with the concept of the video, stating; “The song touched on the themes of karma and reincarnation, in the clip a woman journeys through her life ‘seeing’ people’s karma. She sees what they are and what they will become. She sees people who are doing well, who are gods in this life. ‘Just because you’ve got the highground/Doesn’t mean you’re have the most fun.’ She imagines them transform into different life forms, even into walking ghosts. Conversely, she sees some who are destitute and alone. She sees them transforming into enlightened people. Finally, she imagines her own future, shrouded in cloud and mystery.”

You can have a look at the lovely video for “A Bit Of Precious” down below:

Belle and Sebastian are touring extensively this year with dates set all around the UK, US and Europe. You can find ticket info here and a list of their UK tour dates beneath:

Tour Dates

15/07/2022- Lloyds Amphitheatre- Bristol, UK
16/07- Doune The Rabbit Hole- Stirling, UK
13/11- The Great Hall, Cardiff University Students’ Union- Cardiff, UK
14/11- The Roundhouse- London, UK
15/11- The Roundhouse- London, UK
17/11- O2 Academy- Sheffield, UK
18/11- Olympia- Liverpool, UK
19/11- Asylum – Hull University Union- Hull, UK
21/11- Beach Ballroom- Aberdeen, UK
23/11- Usher Hall- Edinburgh, UK
24/11-  O2 City Hall- Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
27/11 Corn Exchange- Cambridge, UK
28/11- O2 Academy- Birmingham, UK
29/11- Guildhall Southampton- Southampton, UK
30/11- Brighton Dome- Brighton, UK

The UK tour will begin in Aberdeen next January and is set to finish in Motherwell at the end of February. After this, the band will perform throughout Europe in April 2022 – beginning in Munich, Germany and ending in Brussel’s, Belgium. The tour has been greatly anticipated since Belle and Sebastian last performed, on November 8th in Spain, Benidorm at the Primavera Weekender. This announcement, without a doubt, shows great promise for the beginning 2022.

To say we are overjoyed would be an understatement! We’re ON ACTUAL TOUR in 2022! Tickets on general sale Friday 18th @ 10am BST/ 11am CET. Fan pre-sale Wed 16th @ 10am BST/11am CET. Euro ticket info to follow!
* UK Pre-sale link * https://t.co/YZQIaJTYY3 pic.twitter.com/PbF059c90e

— belle & sebastian (@bellesglasgow) June 14, 2021

Ever since the band formed in 1994 Belle and Sebastian have continued to grow in popularity. Their music became adored worldwide as word was spread about their songs, and such songs were quick to be used in popular film and television shows. It is no surprise that fans are ecstatic at their new UK and European tour. The wonders of a live performance by Belle and Sebastian was showcased in their LP which was released in December last year. The creative effort of their live album, called ‘What To look For In Summer‘,features a number of their live performances from last year, including the exclusive ‘Boaty Weekender’. ‘What To look For In Summer‘ was covered by mxdwn and you can read about the LP here. A press release, that is mentioned in the article, stated that ‘What To look For In Summer‘ is “the sound of a band that’s always moving forward, a picture of Belle and Sebastian in 2019 that gives equal weight to early days and recent years”. We can only expect good things from a UK and European Tour.

 

 

 

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Pre-sale ticket’s for the Belle and Sebastian tour can be bought on Wednesday 16th June at 10am BST here. The general tickets for the tour are released on Friday 18th June at 10am BST here. The bands website announced in regards to their UK tour and Europe tour that “we’re stepping out into 2022 with a string of concerts here in the UK”.

UK Tour dates:

3/01/22 – Beach Ballroom – Aberdeen, UK
01/02/22 –Usher Hall- Edinburgh, UK
03/02 -University Union Asylum– Hull, UK
04/02 -De Montfort Hall – Leicester
06/02 – Great Hall – Cardiff, UK
07/02 – Academy– Manchester, UK
09/02- Olympia – Liverpool, UK
10/02 – 02 Guildhall – Southampton, UK
11/02 –  The Dome – Brighton, UK
13/02 – Corn Exchange – Cambridge, UK
14/02– The Roundhouse – London, UK
15/02 – -The Roundhouse – London, UK
17/02 – 02 Academy – Birmingham, UK
18/02 – 02 Academy –  Sheffield, UK
19/02 – 02 City Hal – Newcastle, UK
21/02 – Concert Hall –  Motherwell, UK

Europe Tour Dates:

11/04/22 – Tonhalle – Munich, Germany
12/04 – Fabrique – Milan, Italy
13 /04– Co-op de Mai – Clermont-Ferrand, France
14 /04– X-tra Limmathaus – Zurich, Switzerland
16/04 – Tempodrom – Berlin, Germany
17/04 – Laeiszhalle – Hamburg, Germany
20/04 – Sentrum Scene – Oslo, Norway
21/04 – Tradgarn – Gothenburg, Sweden
23/04 – Filadelfia – Stockholm, Sweden
24 /04– Vega – Copenhagen, Denmark
26/04 – Tivoli Grote Zaal – Utrecht, Holland
27/04 – Casino de Paris – Paris, France
29/04 – Les Nuits Botanique – Brussels, Belgium

The public have been able to vote for the songs they want to hear on the record; which will be performed by the original artists and their road crew. The latest tranche of tracks was unveiled on the Whole Lotta Roadies social media channels today.

The final track listing for the album has yet to be determined, but confirmed numbers include:

• Edinburgh acoustic folk-rocker KT Tunstall performing her 2005 hit single Black Horse and the Cherry Tree;
• Glaswegians Twin Atlantic performing Heart and Soul, which topped the official UK Rock chart in 2014;
• Honeyblood (aka Stina Tweeddale) performing 2014 single Biro;
• Belle and Sebastian and their crew performing their 2004 hit I’m A Cuckoo;
• Edinburgh punk veterans The Rezillos performing Top Of The Pops, a top 20 hit in 1978;
• Aberdeen alt-rockers The XCerts performing Shaking In The Water, the lead single from their 2014 album There Is Only You;

Further tracks are set to be unveiled later this week, with numbers from from Leith icons the The Proclaimers; indie rockers Idlewild; space rock merchants Mogwai; Falkirk outifit Arab Strap; Kilmarnock’s Fatherson; former Delgados singer-songwriter Emma Pollock and Inverness musician Kathryn Joseph all set to feature. On Monday the Whole Lotta Roadies Twitter account promised that “each tune is a nailed on beauty.”

The new LP has been put together by The Fruit Tree Foundation, a project originally formed in 2010 by Emma Pollock and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones to create the multi-artist compilation album First Edition based around the themes of mental health and wellbeing. Jones told NME that the ongoing pandemic had given the organisation a new sense of purpose.

He said “The devastating impact Covid-19 has had on the music industry is well documented and few are far more affected than live crew. On speaking to members of our touring crew I realised how they were falling through the cracks in government funding and with no gigs and tours upcoming the outlook for them was bleak. I wanted to try and find a way to support them and the wider Scottish Live Crew industry.”

Jones added “Knowing how many crew members are also very talented musicians in their own right I thought it would be fitting for them to showcase this by covering songs of the bands they have been working with over the years, and releasing an album of this to create a hardship fund and also awareness of their situation.”

We are concluding this strangest of years on a happy note with the release of a brand new live LP ‘What to Look For in Summer’. The album is released December 11th on @matadorrecords!
Pre-order here on CD and 2xLP. https://t.co/NW6SoBbuGp pic.twitter.com/HqEUXaHK2y

— belle & sebastian (@bellesglasgow) October 27, 2020

The press release declares that What To Look For In Summer is “the sound of a band that’s always moving forward, a picture of Belle and Sebastian in 2019 that gives equal weight to early days and recent years”. Scanning the track-list to find cult favourites like ‘The Fox In The Snow’ alongside new singles like ‘We Were Beautiful’ confirms that this will be a wonderful collaborative effort between their early, twee days and their later, pop efforts, showcasing, no doubt, some of the best of their varied albums.

Speaking about putting the project together, frontman Stuart Murdoch said lightly, “we’d been badgered by our fan base to put out recordings of the shows … Touring the band is something that I never thought we’d do. It’s turned into the thrill of a lifetime, really, in a manifest, physical way. It’s just the nicest experience that I think I’ve had in my life.”

To announce the album, they have shared two new music videos set to live tracks: ‘My Wandering Days Are Over’ and ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’. The first is incredibly on form for Belle & Sebastian: a meet-cute on two escalators going in opposite directions, followed by a day of wandering Glasgow.

‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ is not fictional, but rather completely joyful clips of the band playing sensible and silly instruments alike from their respective homes. It combines the lockdown experience with all of the thrills of live music; you can hear every note and every cheer. You even get that final, immortal line that you can never quite catch on the recording: “Sunday bathtime could take a while…”

Stuart chats and adlibs and jokes through the end of the track and I realise that this is the kind of intimacy of a live performance that I didn’t even realise I had missed. Obviously, there is being in the crowd – that seems like a lifetime ago – but there is also being in the moment, and knowing that it is different to every other night of a tour for exactly that reason.

Both are filmed like all the best classic Belle & Sebastian videos – vivid colours, camera quality that leaves just a little to be desired, making a whole story out of the streets of Glasgow. ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ is so unbelievably contagious (even twenty-two years on) that when the camera pans round, you can see some neighbours dancing from their balcony. It seems likely that What To Look For In Summer will continue to emit this delightful energy in spades for the duration of its twenty three tracks.

Belle & Sebastian are a band that can’t really sit still. Their latest project was Days of the Bagnold Summer, starring Earl Cave and directed by Simon Bird, who you’ll know from The Inbetweeners and Friday Night Dinner. The film is adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Joff Winterheart, and Earl Cave plays the lead character who is obsessed with metal and Metalllica. Naturally, Belle & Sebastian wrote and recorded the whole soundtrack.

What To Look For In Summer will be released on December 11 via Matador. You can peruse the tracklist below, where you’ll likely spot some old and forgotten favourites. If the two videos released today are anything to go by, Belle & Sebastian will be injecting them with something great and making them feel brand new again.

1. The Song of The Clyde £ >
2. Dirty Dream Number Two *
3. Step Into My Office, Baby *
4. We Were Beautiful +
5. Seeing Other People %
6. If She Wants Me @
7. Beyond The Sunrise &
8. Wrapped Up In Books +
9. Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John $
10. Nice Day For A Sulk (digital only) #
11. I Can See Your Future *
12. Funny Little Frog ^
13. The Fox In The Snow+
14. If You’re Feeling Sinister*
15. My Wandering Days Are Over*
16. The Wrong Girl #
17. Stay Loose%
18. The Boy Done Wrong Again #
19. Poor Boy%
20. Dog On Wheels%
21. The Boy With The Arab Strap+
22. I Didn’t See It Coming+
23. Belle And Sebastian #

£ recorded Banchory Studios, Glasgow, August 6, 2020 (digital version)
> recorded by Kenneth McKellar (vinyl + CD versions)
* The Boaty Weekender, August 10, 2019
+ Royal Oak Theatre, Michigan, July 21, 2019
% Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, July 12, 2019
# House Of Blues, Boston, MA, July 13, 2019
^ M-Telus, Montreal, QC, July 15, 2019
@ Carnegie Hall – Pittsburgh, PA, July 18, 2019
& House Of Blues, Cleveland, OH, July 19, 2019
$ Auditoria Baluarte, Pamplona, Barcelona, November 4, 2019