Hugo Race Fatalists

Hugo Race, formerly of The Wreckery and the Bad Seeds and now an internationally based producer, writer and performer with bands like The True Spirit and Dirtmusic, delivers intense sonic soundscapes that merge folk, experimentalism, electronica and rock. Hugo Race Fatalists’ astonishing new album 24 Hours to Nowhere will be released by Glitterhouse Records on May 27th, 2016.

“24 Hours to Nowhere is perhaps the most personal album I’ve ever written. These songs come directly from the heart, created to be sung and played using only a steelstring guitar, a very traditional, almost folk-music-like approach I’ve developed through the hundreds of concerts I’ve played worldwide as a solo performer. Singing alone to an audience inspires a sense of intimacy, drawing them into my secret emotional world, seeking to touch their souls with tales of the grandeur of life, and the terror too. The 24 Hours to Nowhere songs are of this kind, speaking of life, love, death and the mystical beyond that commands our greatest hopes and fears.

The album took over a year to write, but barely a week to record with Sacri Cuori (aka Fatalists), my sonic brothers from Italy; their own music is very aware of past musical traditions and they are expert producers of retro-nostalgic sounds from the mythic border between Tuscany and Texas. Together we share a love of great songwriters of the past and the way in which those songwriters were produced. 24 Hours to Nowhere is our third album together. I had been listening to the great 60s/70s songwriters, artists like Tim Hardin and Fred Neil, and wanted to create similar atmospheres with musically rich and emotionally focused orchestrations. I heard strings on all the new songs I was writing, but didn’t want to follow an obvious route, so I created orchestral atmospheres using electronics then collaborated with Vicki Brown (violins) and Julitha Ryan (cellos) to record the final arrangements.

The narrative of the title track demanded a duet; Angie Hart, singer of the Australian pop band Frente, embraced the vision, bringing a beauty and lightness of touch to the darkness of these songs. Davide Mahony and Giovanni Ferrario from Sepiatone, and Michelangelo Russo from The True Spirit, also guested on the sessions, tuning into a feel that evokes the past and yet positions itself in the now. The songs are intended to be timeless, to stab at your heart while engaging your mind and to leave some kind of impact on your soul. 24 Hours to Nowhere will always remain deeply personal to me – it depicts life as it is, not how we want it to be, revealing the deep beauty that is sorrow’s perfect twin.” (Hugo Race, Melbourne, March 2016)