Fever Dream, the new solo album from Ben Watt is released worldwide on April 8 2016 on Watt’s own imprint Unmade Road through Caroline International.

Fever Dream – self-produced at London’s famous RAK Studio 2, and mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering in Maine – takes Hendra’s sonic template of open-tuned folk-jazz, distorted string-bent rock, and soulful rumination, and adds a fresh grainy intensity. It renews key partnerships with Hendra’s vaunted guitarist-sideman Bernard Butler and engineer Bruno Ellingham, and sprinkles guest vocal cameos from Boston’s dream-folk singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler and Hiss Golden Messenger’s M.C. Taylor.

Watt’s non-fiction writing and lyrics have been integral to his recent acclaim. His second memoir Romany and Tom – a portrait of his parents’ marriage – was longlisted for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014. (His first, 1996’s Patient was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year). Novelist Jonathan Coe recently commented Watt is ‘beyond doubt one of the great British singer-songwriters’, while The Guardian’s senior rock critic Alexis Petridis called the writing on Hendra ‘pretty much perfect’.

It was in 1981 that Watt first appeared in London as a precocious nineteen year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist. His breakthrough 1982 EP Summer into Winter featured alt-folk icon Robert Wyatt and drew comparisons with Tim Buckley. His early solo work may be overshadowed by his subsequent successes with Tracey Thorn, but his 1983 debut solo album North Marine Drive reached No 1 on the UK Independent Albums Chart.