David Gedge’s The Wedding Present have today streamed their melodic new single 'Jump In, The Water's Fine' ahead its physical release.
It’s the first new material since 2017 and first release since bassist Danielle Wadey recent switch from bass to guitar. Melanie Howard joins on bass. The switch for Wadey, who co-wrote the song, appears to be a great one as one of the key draws of this cut is hearing the interlocking guitars.
Another draw is how varied in feel it is: measured doses of feedback, fuzz bass, occasional heavy bursts of rhythm guitar cloth a tender song. Making use of there now being singers in the band adds weight to it too, with female voices a gift to the song.
Recorded at Monnow Valley studios in Wales by multi-Grammy award winning producer Andrew Scheps and engineer Matt Glasbey, it will get its physical release on 2 August. It comes on 7” and 10" picture disc - the band's first - featuring specially commissioned artwork by Darren Hayman via Come Play With Me.
The b-side is titled ‘Panama’ and is a frenetic indie pop cut.
Speaking of the b-side Gedge says in a press release: "As well as including one of my favourite palindromes, ‘Panama’ references ‘Earthrise’, the iconic photograph of Earth taken by astronaut Bill Anders (during the Apollo 8 mission) on Christmas Eve, 1968. We decided to incorporate samples of the astronauts talking to Mission Control."
The Wedding Present will be performing a series of 30th anniversary ‘Bizarro’ shows across the UK, Europe and Asia in 2019 in celebration of the band’s major label debut album.