JOSH RITTER ANNOUNCES UK & EU HELLO STARLING 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
NEW ALBUM SPECTRAL LINES OUT NOW
“Richly atmospheric, sonically adventurous” – The Sun
“Josh Ritter is like a more open-hearted version of Leonard Cohen. His lyrics draw on the divine but he seems to see a little heaven in all the people around him” – Paste
Following the release of his stunning new album Spectral Lines last month, Josh Ritter has announced he will be returning to the UK and Europe later this year for a run of very special shows. Connecting back with The Royal City Band, Josh Ritter will celebrate 20 years of his acclaimed third album Hello Starling.
“When I wrote ‘Hello Starling’, I was playing coffee shops and open mics. By the time it came out, I was on tour with the Frames and Joan Baez. I was practically living on the road, hearing my songs on the radio for the first time, staying up all night, touring Europe, doing all these things I had only dreamt of. It was a grand time,” Josh reminisces of the album. “For the 20th anniversary of the album, the band and I will be taking a swing through Hello Starling. We’ll play the entire album in full, front to back, and then play a bunch more music. It just felt right to try this out first in Ireland, England, and the Netherlands, where I spent so much time in 2003 “
Josh Ritter & the Royal City Band play the following winter 2023 UK & EU Dates, including a date at Hackney Church in London on October 27th. Tickets are on-sale HERE.
October
18 Oct – Kilkenny, IE – Set Theatre
19 Oct – Galway, IE – Leisureland Galway
20 Oct – Belfast, UK – Mandela Hall
22 Oct – Limerick, IE – Dolan’s
23 Oct – Cork, IE – Opera House
24 Oct – Dublin, IE – National Concert Hall
25 Oct – Dublin, IE – National Concert Hall
27 Oct – London, UK – Hackney Church
28 Oct – Manchester, UK – Manchester Concert Hall
29 Oct – Glasgow, UK – St. Luke’s
31 Oct – Rotterdam, NL – LantarenVenster
01 Nov – Haarlem, NL – Patronaat
02 Nov – Utrecht, NL – Pandora
04 Nov – Groningen, NL – Take Root Festival
Produced by Ritter’s longtime collaborator Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim), Spectral Lines finds Ritter expanding beyond the bounds of his previous work to create a record both atmospheric and profound. Dedicated to the memory of his mother, Ritter searches for commonality across these ten seamless tracks by exploring life’s most universal ideas—love, devotion and what it means to be connected, to both each other and to ourselves.
One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, Ritter has released ten studio albums to date including 2019’s widely acclaimed, Fever Breaks, of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.” In addition to his work as a musician, Ritter is also a national best-selling author, having released two novels to date: 2011’s Bright’s Passage and 2021’s The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All, for which the film rights have recently been optioned for development.