Willy Mason has announced details of a UK tour to promote his forthcoming third album Carry On.
Kicking off at Glasgow King Tuts on December 1, the jaunt includes dates in Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol before concluding in London. Fans have been eagerly snapping up Willy Mason tickets for the dates, which will follow a nationwide support tour with kindred musical spirit Ben Howard in November.
Carry On, his first full length release in five years, is due to hit shelves on December 3. Explaining the significance of the LP, Mason says it represents the "third and final chapter" to a narrative that began with his 2004 debut Where the Humans Eat.
He comments: "It’s a narrative that’s loosely based on me, on my character through performance, and I think that by completing this album, I'm sort of closing the door on that and opening up a whole new world of possibilities."
The album was recorded in South London with Franz Ferdinand cohort Dan Carey, whose production methods were initially perplexing to the singer-songwriter. "It didn't make sense to me, it scared me," Mason explains. "But I was open to trying it."
The release comes in the wake of the folk strummer's debut and sophomore LPs. Where the Humans Eat snowballed from a word-of-mouth gem to a gold-certified hit record, spawning the classic single 'Oxygen'. Meanwhile, 2007's If the Ocean Gets Rough proved a key turning point for the underground hero, adding a rockier edge to his laid-back sound.
Having waited half a decade to follow it up, Mason has explained that returning to his native Martha's Vineyard proved a key inspiration. "I felt like I wanted, needed to get stuck in somewhere, to keep up with what was going on with the people my age," he comments. With new genre elements coming to the fore on the recording, including dub and reggae, songs such as 'I Got Gold' and 'Restless Fugitive' are awash with feelings such as lost love and abandonment. "It’s a narrative that’s loosely based on me, on my character through performance, and I think that by completing this album, I’m sort of closing the door on that and opening up a whole new world of possibilities," Mason concludes.
Long established as a popular live performer on both sides of the Atlantic, this charming recording artist is now playing bigger venues than ever on our shores as more and more people are turned onto his folk-rock sound. With singer-songwriters such as Ben Howard and Ed Sheeran taking troubadour tunes to the top of the charts, there's never been a better time for Mason to enter the big league.
Fans looking to buy tickets for Willy Mason's UK tour may wish to check the latest ticket listings and availability on StubHub UK. Part of the world's biggest fan-to-fan ticket marketplace, it's where fans buy and sell tickets for concerts, sports events and other forms of entertainment, with the full confidence that their transaction is assured by StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee. With tickets already selling fast for Mason's tour, his popularity looks set to Carry On in the UK.