The xx’s Oliver Sim cancels autumn tour
The xx’s Oliver Sim has decided to call off his upcoming tour in support of the upcoming solo debut, Hideous Bastard.
The new album is set for release on September 9th, with the supporting tour scheduled to follow on the 29th with an opening show at the Showbox in Seattle. The North American dates were set to continue until October 11th, followed by a UK and European leg between October 20th and 30th. Refunds will be available at the point of purchase.
“Part of the reason Hideous Bastard came to be was imagining playing the songs live,” Sim wrote in an Instagram post. “But timing is everything and sometimes things don’t quite come tougher the way we’d hoped. The shows booked for September and October are sadly not able to happen so we’ll have to wait a little longer to hear these songs in a room together. I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused but I look forward to putting on a truly hideous show for you very soon.”
Sim gave details for Hideous Bastard back in May this year alongside the revelation that he has been furtively living with HIV for the past 15 years. “Early on in the making of my record, Hideous Bastard, I realised that I was writing a lot about fear and shame,” Sim wrote in a statement announcing the album. “I haven’t written the record to dwell, but rather to free myself of some of the shame and fear that I’ve felt for a long time. So, I hear a lot of the music as joyous, because the experience of writing and recording it has been the complete opposite of what fear and shame have been for me.”
Discussing the single, ‘Hideous’, directly, Sim added: “I realised I’d been I’d been circling around one of the things that has probably caused me the most fear and shame. My HIV status. I’ve been living with HIV since I was 17 and it’s played with how I’ve felt towards myself, and how I’ve assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life… So, quite impulsively, I wrote about it on a song called Hideous.”
Hideous Bastard has now been previewed by four singles: ‘Romance With a Memory’, ‘Fruit’, ‘Hideous’, and ‘GMT’.
Last week, Sim’s xx bandmate Jamie xx unleashed his production skills to remix ‘GMT’ into an extended electronic soundscape using samples from Brian Wilson’s ‘Smile’. Jamie xx was joined by esteemed DJ, Floating Points, for the venture.
Listen to Jamie xx’s remix of Oliver Sim’s ‘GMT’ below.
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