When: 7pm on Friday 29 January 2027
Where: Band on the Wall, 26 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JZ

We’re excited to be welcoming Josh Rouse back to Band on the Wall – with special guest Kathryn Williams!

Josh Rouse has signed to New West Records and will release his label debut Museums and Women on 23 October. The 10-song set was produced by Brad Jones, who also produced Rouse’s critically acclaimed 2003 album 1972. Museums and Women showcases Rouse at his most hopeful and romantic, balancing casual poetry and wry humour in equal measure as he conjures up a cast full of drifters and dreamers moving through life with quiet satisfaction. The music is often bittersweet, with a gentle, seemingly placid surface that belies the deep well of emotion and memory and desire underneath. The result is a lush, cinematic exploration of the endless stream of passing strangers who slip in and out of our lives on a daily basis. He says, ‘I was drawn to these songs because they’re so observational. They’re full of characters and stories I dreamed up from little moments that sparked my imagination on the road. At the end of the day, though, it’s inevitable that I’m in there somewhere, too.’

The sessions for Museums and Women were quick and raw, with Rouse on guitar, Jones on bass, and Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, The Chicks) on drums. The trio would record live in the morning, cutting multiple songs in a row before returning in the afternoon to complete overdubs while the music was still fresh and new. ‘At a certain point, Brad had this folder full of recordings on his desktop, and he asked me what to call it,’ Rouse remembers. ‘I suggested Museums and Women because it was the name of a John Updike book I’d always loved, and it just felt right for the kind of stories I was telling.’ Indeed, Museums and Women is a particularly fitting title for a collection that observes its subjects from a reverent distance, elevating ordinary moments of human connection (or lack thereof) into gallery-worthy masterpieces.

Hailed by NPR as ‘one of contemporary music’s most engaging singer-songwriters,’ Rouse first emerged with his stunning 1998 debut, Dressed Up Like Nebraska, which Billboard proclaimed to be a ‘dark horse gem’. In the years to come, he would go on to release thirteen more critically acclaimed albums, homing in on a warm, ruminative sound that fused elements of vintage folk, roots rock, and AM pop with a distinctly modern and emotionally insightful perspective. Q Magazine called his 2003 breakout release, 1972 ‘the most intimate record of the year,’ while Rolling Stone dubbed his follow-up, Nashville, ‘a landmark album,’ and Entertainment Weekly described 2013’s The Happiness Waltz as ‘a big contender for Rouse’s best work’. After moving to Spain, where he lived for a little more than a decade, Rouse won a Goya (the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) for his song Do You Really Want To Be In Love, and since returning to Nashville in 2018 with his wife and children, has continued to tour and record at a relentless clip, performing everywhere from Glastonbury to Massey Hall.

Museums and Women will be available across digital platforms, compact disc, and standard black vinyl. A limited Cream White colour vinyl edition and a limited compact disc edition both autographed by Josh Rouse will be available at independent retailers and are also available for pre-order now via New West Records.

Special guest is Kathryn Williams. Kathryn Williams is a British Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter. With 17 albums under her belt in the last 27 years, her last solo album, Night Drives, debuted at No. 2 in the official folk album charts, while her last album, a collaboration with Withered Hand titled Willson Williams was nominated for the SAY and AMA awards. Label One Little Independent celebrated her career (thus far) with a 20-CD and 2-book box set, Anthology, strewn with her artwork.

Her novel The Ormering Tide debuted to critical acclaim, and she also hosts her own popular podcast, Before the Light Goes Out, which appeared in the Top Ten best music podcasts by the Guardian. Kathryn tutors at the Arvon and Moniack Mhor Foundations, and writes with many diverse artists around the world including Paul Weller, Chris Difford, Ed Harcourt, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Michele Stodart. She is the only female included in the Top Ten list of Greatest Liverpool songwriters of all time.  Her latest album, Mystery Park, is out now.

This show is for ages 10+. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

Tickets go on sale at 10am on Wednesday 23 September via Seetickets.com

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