Scottish singer-songwriter – Philip Seth Campbell appears in Cambridge on a tour supporting new solo album ‘City Lights’, set for release on 1 September 2023.
An amalgamation of Campbell’s life and career up until this point, ‘City Lights’ unfolds like a series of cinematic snapshots, captured in timeless technicolour. From the shimmery and synth-heavy, widescreen-ready opener “Magical West” to plucky ballads like “Break The Curse” and “Sober Boy” and from the bluesy soulful title-track “City Lights” to riled-up and rocky “Gut City Blues”, Philip Seth Campbell traverses time and genre with a deft sense of musicality that glints and glimmers like an unearthed trove of deep-buried treasure.
Speaking of the new record, Campbell explains:
“”City Lights” is everything I know. The album flowed naturally, each song informing the next. It’s half new songs and half older unfinished pieces. I’ve been writing it since I was 16, all through my 20s and my years in London, through moving home to The Temperance Movement, touring, resting and having a family.”
The sound of an artist who has been through the wringer and emerged all the more assured on the other side, the album tells the tale of the highs, lows and everything in between. From major labels and critical acclaim to bands, solo records and eclectic collaborations, Campbell’s musical scars have only served to hone his craft and embolden his work in a way that makes him the musician he is today.
Speaking of his varied career and the bumpy road he’s traversed to get to this point, Campbell adds:
“A new band here, a new project there, a change of direction again and again until, suddenly there was calm and the time to think. In a small studio just outside Glasgow, with pictures of Bowie, Jagger, Neil Young and Tom Waits, I recorded an album about my whole life. I had no desire to shed my skin. I was perfectly comfortable in it for the very first time.”
Hailing from Glasgow, Philip Seth Campbell has been releasing music since 1997. Having released a handful of records and EPs over the years, Campbell gave it all up in 2012 to join London-based rock band The Temperance Movement.
Having toured the world with the band and learnt how to sing, seven years on the road took its toll and The Temperance Movement came to an end in late 2019. A short while later Campbell formed a second, Glasgow-based band The Byson Family. The collaboration had been a long time coming and what started as a side project became a serious concern as they set about recording their debut album, which was released in 2020.
Having since released snapshots of solo material including the 2022 EP ‘Feel Again’, Philip Scott Campbell has been praised for his ability to channel a primal Springsteen howl one moment and evoke a tender Sam Cooke croon the next. With a shapeshifting sonic ability that means listeners are never quite sure which musical alley he’ll wander up next, Campbell’s songwriting is honest and unflinching, yet widescreen and cinematic at the same time.
Imbued with an innate sense of musicality — and with a voice so uniquely classic it’s hard not to love — Campbell is a musician’s musician, and one who is now calling on past experience to look to the future. A man with stories to tell and songs that need to be sung, Philip Seth Campbell’s unique sound is perhaps more urgent now than ever.
With ‘City Lights’ set to land on 1 September, the album will be available to pre-order now.