As lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch has been responsible for some of the greatest music of the last thirty years. Ocean Rain, the Bunnymen’s fourth album from 1984 is in my all time top five (along with Revolver, Disintegration,Low and Parallel Lines). He has also produced three solo albums so far – Candleland, Mysterio and Slideling (I rate the man’s music but I think I’d rather gloss over his reading of ‘September Song’ released as a single in 1984).

Anyway, ‘Mac the mouth’ as he was dubbed in the 1980s is shortly to release his fourth solo album, Holy Ghosts, a package of two albums within one. This will be released on April 22. The first one is a live album, recorded in May 2012 at London’s Union Chapel (nice venue, I once saw The Delgados playing there with Six By Seven, back in the midsts of time) which features Ian Broudie on guitar and was produced by Youth, Mac keeping his post-punk links going. The second disc is his fourth solo album Pro Patria Mori. *

The version of ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’ sounds lovely.

Meanwhile, I was certainly pretty excited to learn that Echo and the Bunnymen are on a co-headlining tour with James next month:

April 2012

13th – Glasgow
15th – Newcastle Academy
16th – Sheffield Academy
17th – Bristol
19th – London Brixton Academy
20th – London Brixton Academy
22nd – Bournemouth O2 Academy
23rd – Leeds Academy
25th – Birmingham Academy
26th – Manchester Academy

I have seen both acts live several times – and even in big venues they still kick ass!

* Just in case you have even less Latin than I ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ – ‘it is sweet and right to die for your country.’