Will Varley The Hole Around My Head (Red)

Will Varley releases The Hole Around My Head, his first new material since 2018. The album is the first to be released on Yellow Cake, a brand new record label and artist protection entity set up by record producer Cameron McVey (internationally renowned for his work with Massive Attack, Portishead, Sugababes, and his wife Neneh Cherry). McVey produced Varley’s last album, 2018’s The Spirit Of Minnie, and the two stayed in touch. “When I started writing this new album I gave Cam a call and he told me he was starting a label, so things went from there,” Varley explains.

The singer songwriter self-produced the new album over the Winter lockdown in his makeshift studio on the Kent coast, playing most of the instruments himself. Having never produced an album before, he had McVey on hand via video call to offer encouragement and advice from his family spread deep in the Swedish forest.

"This song, and really the whole album is about overcoming entropy, and the will of human beings to push on and create order and patterns in the maddness and chaos of our existence” comments Varley of ‘Pushing Against Us’. “It's about our stubbornness, our distractions and the minutiae of our everyday lives vs. the sheer vastness of the universe around us and our staggering ignorance."

After spending most of the last eight years on the road, lockdown forced Will to slow down. “I found myself at home for the first time in years. So I started writing and tinkering around with old mics and bits of equipment I've had gathering dust in my basement. It was a very cathartic process, writing and recording this record became my escape from reading the news every day.”

As the snow storms hit and lockdown intensified the album began to take shape “I would work through the night, and often I felt like the only person awake in the whole town. I would send the sessions to Cam in the early hours of the morning, and he'd give me feedback on them the next day.”

“Will’s the Springsteen of his generation to my ears and sensibilities,” adds McVey. “He’s not really a f**king folk singer is he?! This new record is more of an affirmation than a conscious change of direction. The songs are raw and the production almost painfully too honest at times. Will plays and sings like his studio is on fire and he has to finish before it burns to the ground.”

The album was mastered by iconic mastering engineer Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, Tom Waits, Prince), following up on an offer to master Varley’s next record after the singer songwriter turned up at his house in LA with some fried chicken in early 2020.