Dean Wareham announces new solo album “That's The Price of Loving Me” out 28th March on Carpark

Listen to first single 'You Were The Ones I Had To Betray'https://youtu.be/M4eODAn5zZc

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Dean Wareham has announced the March 28 release of a new solo abum, That’s The Price Of Loving Me via Carpark.  The album reunites Wareham with Kramer (Galaxie 500, Will Oldham, Low) as producer, marking their first collaboration in 34 years.  The pair last worked together around the release of Galaxie 500’s swan song This Is Our Music in 1990.  Across the LP’s 10 tracks, you can hear traces of their earlier work together, but today the chord progressions are more complex – drawing influence from Bacharach, Gainsbourg, Norma Tanega – and the arrangements are too. Yet Wareham’s signature electric guitar stylings still anchor the songs -   before he opens his mouth to sing, you can recognize his voice in the guitar lines. “Kramer insisted that I play all the guitars on this record,” says Dean. “And we worked quickly. Kramer believes that two takes yield more treasure than twenty, and he always seems to have the song mapped out in his head right away.”

Today Dean shares the first taste of That’s The Price Of Loving Me with lead-single “You Were The Ones I Had To Betray.” The song unfolds like a pack of cards being dealt, He shares, “I wrote this at the last minute, thinking about how love and friendship seem to actually invite betrayal. I didn’t really anticipate where the song would end up musically; it was transformed when Gabe Noel added the cello arrangement in the studio.”  

Watch the video for “You Were the Ones I Had to Betray, directed by Sylvie Lake, here

With a career spanning decades, beginning with his seminal band Galaxie 500 and continuing with Luna and Dean & Britta (his wife Britta Phillips is in both bands), That’s The Price of Loving Me marks Wareham's fourth solo album. Most recently, he released a holiday album, A Peace of Us, last year alongside Phillips and Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) earning accolades from The New York Times, Vogue, Flood Magazine, Under the Radar, and more. Additionally 2024 saw the release of Uncollected Noise New York, 88-90, a compilation of unreleased Galaxie 500 tracks.

That’s the Price of Loving Me, was recorded in just six days in the Eagle Rock neighbourhood of Los Angeles and the album’s sonic palette occasionally hints at Galaxie 500, but the passage of time is front and centre. “Imagination is memory,” says Dean. “The working over and expanding of anything and everything we can remember.”

Kramer leaves his musical fingerprint throughout; playing acoustic and electric piano, pump organ, celeste and various synthesizers. Britta plays bass and adds backing vocals, while drums were played by long-time collaborators Roger Brogan (Spectrum, Alison’s Halo) and Anthony LaMarca (the War on Drugs). Gabe Noel, the extraordinary L.A. session cellist, joined on four tracks he arranged on the spot without hearing a single note beforehand. Vocally, Dean’s range is lower, closer and more intimate than it was in 1990 and the album’s lyrics are melancholic and witty in equal measure.

Speaking of the collaboration Kramer says “34 years is a long time. But I love Dean, so it was worth the wait. Going back into the studio with him again felt like we’d never been apart. And when the work was done, I felt like it couldn’t have been better. There was a ‘full circle’ air around us that still lingers. I’m grateful for having been invited inside again, and for the emotional opportunities that a truly deep and personal collaboration can offer. It’s incredibly rare, and I’d be surprised if I feel anything even remotely like this again.”

Track list1. You Were the Ones I Had to Betray
2. Dear Betty Baby
3. Mystery Guest
4. New World Julie
5. We're Not Finished Yet
6. Bourgeois Manqué
7. Yesterday's Hero
8. That's the Price of Loving Me
9. Reich der Träume
10. The Cloud is Coming

Tour dates
April 1, 2025 - Glasgow, UK @ The Garage
April 2, 2025 - Manchester, UK @ Band on the Wall
April 3, 2025 - Liverpool, UK @ Hangar 34
April 4, 2025 - Leamington, UK @ The Assembly
April 5, 2025 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
April 6, 2025 - Briston, UK @ The Fleece
April 7, 2025 - London, UK @ 229

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