Lonely Avenue, the forthcoming album pairing Ben Folds and Nick Hornby, is featured in Billboard, in which Folds says it was an "instinct to collaborate and make music with people who aren't necessarily musicians" that led to his unique pairing with the English novelist. The Evening Standard says: "They fit beautifully together ... Hornby fans will recognise the tone immediately."
Lonely Avenue, the new album featuring music and vocals by Ben Folds and words by Nick Hornby, is due out from Nonesuch later this month, on September 28 and is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store. The album is the subject of a feature article in Billboard, in which Folds discusses the roots of the project and the process he and Hornby used to make it happen, including his own switch from digital back to analog recording.
He tells Billboard's Gary Graff that it was an "instinct to collaborate and make music with people who aren't necessarily musicians" that led to his unique pairing with the English novelist. "There's such a wide world of things you can do with music."
Read the complete article at billboard.com. The story was also picked up in Spinner, which focuses on Folds' initial concerns about meeting the high standards that would be set by Hornby's words. You can read that at spinner.com.
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Over in Hornby's hometown of London, the Evening Standard traces the pair's partnership back to the author's inclusion of the Ben Folds Five track "Smoke" in his book of favorite songs. Hornby described the song as "lyrically perfect," only to discover from Folds that he hadn't written the words.
"Now they're going steady," writes the Evening Standard's David Smyth, "They fit beautifully together, in part because Hornby leaves the singing to the expert."
Hornby's own expertise is certainly put to good use here. "Hornby fans will recognise the tone immediately," says Smyth. "These aren't poems, they're short stories, packed with fictional characters whose situations are described in easy-to-follow language."
There's much more from the Evening Standard at thisislondon.co.uk.
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Reserve your copy of Lonely Avenue now on vinyl, CD, or in the special deluxe edition with four short stories by Hornby and images by acclaimed photographer Joel Meyerowitz. Nonesuch Store pre-orders also include a limited-edition printed Folds/Hornby manuscript of the song "Picture Window," with a select number signed by the artists. Head to the Nonesuch Store now.
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