Belle and Sebastian announce surprise album with new single, ‘I Don’t Know What You See In Me’
Belle and Sebastian have announced their imminent surprise album, Late Developers, alongside its first preview single, ‘I Don’t Know What You See In Me’.
At 2pm today, Scottish indie legends Belle and Sebastian announced that their 12th studio album, titled Late Developers, would arrive this Friday, January 13th, via Matador. The new record comes following 2022’s A Bit of Previous, which was recorded during the same sessions.
In the press materials, the band make it clear that Late Developers is by no means an afterthought or a collection of A Bit of Previous rejects. “Rather, it’s an embrace of the freedom that comes with a jumbo-sized canvas, skilled students left unsupervised to paint whatever picture they feel like,” the band assert.
“The album’s sunny musical disposition is regularly confronted by the reality that sometimes life and love do not feel good. Major chords on a harpsichord and plucked guitar breeze by as Stuart Murdoch and Sarah Martin lament in harmony, ‘the world is killing me / I’m out to sea’ (‘Will I Tell You a Secret’),” they add.
Before we get our teeth stuck into the main course on friday, Belle and Sebastian have given us an amuse-bouche in the form of ‘I Don’t Know What You See In Me’, a sentimental throwback to ’80s pop music.
In a marked departure from their trampled path, Belle and Sebastian introduce the song with ’80s-style synth over sentimental lamenting vocals before the beat opens up into a soaring chorus.
‘I Don’t Know What You See In Me’ marks the group’s first co-writing collaboration with producer and performer Pete Ferguson. “We’d actually been talking for a couple of years before we got this together,” frontman Stuart Murdoch told NME in a new interview. “He’d just signed to a major label, he was a fan of Belle and Sebastian, and he asked if there was anything we would want to collaborate on, or could I contribute some lyrics.
“He would reciprocate, and when this song came in, I said, ‘Let’s do this one with the band, we’ll sing it for you, and you can be in complete control, produce and mix it’. We thought it was strong enough to go on our record.”
Murdoch further discussed the thumping hit in a press statement. “I was bicycling across Scotland last summer, listening to a mix of this song,” he said. “It was written and produced for us by our friend Pete’ Wuh Oh’ Ferguson. As I listened to it, I felt lucky to be the first person to get to sing this song.
“I let my voice swoop and soar in ways that it maybe hasn’t before. And as I continued through fields of gold and green, I allowed myself to forget it was Belle and Sebastian and pretend it was the latest hit on some random radio station. All music is escape, and perhaps we managed to escape a little further than usual with this unexpected tune. Thanks, Pete!”
Last year, Far Out spoke to Belle and Sebastian’s Chris Geddes for our Doctor’s Orders column. The keyboardist prescribed a selection of his favourite albums – see here.
Listen to Belle and Sebastian’s new single, ‘I Don’t Know What You See In Me’, below.
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