Leif Vollebekk has unveiled the cinematic new video for “Blood Brother” - filmed in the early morning light on top of a London atop of double decker bus. The song is from his recently-released and lauded album New Ways (Secret City Records). Leif was just included in NPR’s Heavy Rotation for November and his biggest tour ever is underway now with eight sold-out shows so far. A headlining spring European tour was also announced today, where Leif will be visiting 12 countries presenting 25 concerts. A second date has already been added in London since Bush Hall was sold out in only a couple of days. See full tour dates below.
Hand-cuffed to a seat on a vacant double-decker bus in London, Vollebekk dances his way to freedom in the restless video - but not without passing along his burden to the bus’ sole other passenger.
"There was a period of a few months where I listened to nothing but Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak. I couldn't get enough of that rock n roll shuffle. And so when I wrote this piano ballad, I guess I just kept hearing these polyrhythms over it. I played it to Olivier [Fairfield, drummer] and it ended up being this whole other thing. Not a ballad at all,” Leif says. “Back in high school, I think the first song I ever played with a band was ‘Last Nite’ by the Strokes. That was in a half-empty high school cafeteria in Ottawa. But it felt like such a release. You don't forget that feeling. I think that snuck in there on this song.”
Video director Joe Connor elaborates on the video’s concept: “Leif is an artist whose music takes me to a dreamlike space. I wanted to create a video that found Leif in the middle of a story, where he has come from and where he is going is unknown but the beauty in this video is that here we find an artist, handcuffed and adrift in a city in the early hours of the morning. This beautiful video presents London in the most spectacular way and sets Leif as a quiet voice amongst the rolling city.”
New Ways is a sonic documentation of everything that Leif felt; tenderness and violence, sex and rebirth. "Anything that I wouldn't ever want to tell anyone - I just put it on the record," he says. It was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles and Breakglass Studios in Montreal, it
features Olivier Fairfield (Timber Timbre) and Homer Steinweiss (The Dap-Kings, Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson) on drums, and additional vocals by Angie McMahon. It was mixed by Chris Allen in NYC (Yoko Ono, Fleet Foxes, Sigur Rós, Margaret Glaspy) and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound (David Byrne, The War On Drugs, Gregory Alan Isakov, Tame Impala, Father John Misty, Bob Dylan, Patrick Watson).
Released in June, the first single "Hot Tears" was featured on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic Top 10 for a number of weeks and was recently featured as a KCRW Today's Top Tune. The song quickly reached well over two million streams. Leif performed a Free At Noon concert at WXPN (listen here) and appeared on CBC ‘q’ (listen here).
2017’s Twin Solitude was a breakthrough album for Leif, landing a spot on the Polaris Music Prize 2017 shortlist, a Juno nomination and is now at over 23 million streams. It was critically acclaimed by Uncut, NPR Music, The Fader, The Sunday Times Culture, The Line of Best Fit, Paste, Brooklyn Vegan, WXPN, KCRW and Exclaim! to only name a few.
Tour Dates
