It’s April 1st, but don’t be fooled… Chris does indeed have a new album out today: THE LIVES AND LOVES OF THE SERIAL HOMESICK, VOLUME 1. Watch the video for the lead track, FINI CHAGALL, below.

While the album is available as a digital download, many fans will be interested in the limited edition CD release which ships with a unique piece of art by Chris (charcoal and pencil art on paper). The CD with artwork can be ordered from Bandcamp — and note that there are copies shipping from the UK as well as the US.

Listen or buy on Bandcamp

Chris writes of this very personal album:

This album serves as an impressionistic view of my life in Edinburgh before I moved to the States, leaving behind what I now realize is unfinished business, unresolved aspirations, like a plant viciously ripped out by the roots and thrown away.

Following the death of my mother in 2023, I spent time wandering around the streets on my own, trying to place the melancholy, trying to steal back the essence of joy I felt in my late teens/early 20s, and it inevitably led me to write, which is the way I have always been able to answer my own questions.

There are 8 songs on this album, each rich with strong feelings of then and now, memories that may or may not be accurate, locations, events, friends and lovers. I want the listener to walk with me quietly through endless days and nights, through the streets of Edinburgh in the early 1980s, over the tenement rooftops, up the hills with cans of Red Stripe and a well stoked hash pipe. Sitting in the Wee Red Bar, Bannermans, The Gilded Balloon, or the Royal Circus. Playing endless nights of music with my beloved FINI TRIBE, dancing at the Hoochie Coochie Club.

Some of these songs are half submerged in dreams, the locations distorted, the colors heightened, the times fluid. If you knew me back then, and we were pals, you are represented, and thanks for the memories.

I no longer live there – life and its commitments have me elsewhere – but I miss it badly and have never felt at home anywhere except Edinburgh, where my soul continues to walk the New Town streets and climb the hills.

All physical copies of this album come with a unique drawing by myself. They are not copies, they are originals in charcoal and pencil of the memories that surround and thrive at the heart of this album. I sat down over a period of time and just drew, it was visceral, emotional, and a lot of fun.

A special shout out to the FINI TRIBE, stars of the song and video for FINI CHAGALL.

Album details and notes:

1. So Long, Ariane
2. Swords at St. Peter’s
3. Lost to Your Amour
4. Odeon
5. The Scars
6. Fini Chagall
7. Port of St. Catherine
8. Midnight on the Swansway

All songs written by CHRIS CONNELLY
Voice, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, sax, percussion, synth, bass, and harmonica by CHRIS CONNELLY

Mastered by JAMES SCOTT at Populist Recordings
Recorded at THE ROCK NOIR, September/October 2023

Front cover drawing: “Dancing at the Hooch” by Chris Connelly (charcoal and pencil on paper, 2023)
Back cover photograph of the Dean Village by GILLIAN WHISKER (with thanks)
Layout by KIMBERLY BLESSING

Dedicated to the lovers on St. Stephen’s

Video for “Fini Chagall” by KIMBERLY BLESSING. Includes footage of Fini Tribe taken by ANGUS CAMERON in the 1980s.