Having graduated from his early, Mercury Music Prize-nominated incarnation as East India Youth, William Doyle has since emerged under his own name as one of the most experimental and exciting British songwriters and world builders working today. His most recent records, 2021’s art-pop masterpiece ‘Great Spans of Muddy Time’ and 2019’s dizzyingly ambitious ‘Your Wilderness Revisited’ drew comparisons to Radiohead and Brian Eno and claimed their place on end of year lists, with the Metro ranking the latter “among the best albums of the century”. 2024’s hotly anticipated follow-up Springs Eternal is Doyle’s most ambitious, dynamic and immediate record yet.
Serving up art-pop for the anthropocene, Springs Eternal is the Mercury-nominated, critically acclaimed artist William Doyle’s most ambitious and most playful creation to date. Taking a panoramic view of the ecstasies and agonies of life in the 2020s, the record asks how we exist as fragile flesh and blood – our hearts beating and our minds racing – in an unprecedented, almost unimaginable time of runaway climate destruction and technological expansion.
Springs Eternal presents a strange and thrilling cast of characters – from cowboys to castaways – who just might be Doyle, once or twice removed. “Most of the songs are in the first-person, but rather than being autobiographical, I was trying to imagine hyperreality versions of myself,” Doyle says. “What if decisions I made in my life had resulted in the self of each particular song? How many degrees of separation am I from those realities? It’s a frightening thought, and frightening thoughts often make for good songs.”
Across 11 tracks, we hear from narrators teetering on the precipice of global disaster, heartbreak, addiction, indoctrination and mental illness, until they pass into the great unknown. The lyrics, by turns earnest and ironic, upfront and allegorical, are paired with infectious melodies and often outright swagger. Co-produced by indie superproducer Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP) at his MESS studio in Margate, we hear the siren song of the sea washing around pulsating electronics and stirring instrumentation, featuring contributions from musicians Alexander Painter, Genevieve Dawson and Brian Eno.
Alongside his own output, Doyle recently produced Anna B Savage’s celebrated debut album A Common Turn (2021) and plays in Orlando Weeks’ band both live and on his upcoming record.
PRESS FOR WILLIAM DOYLE:
“A maximalist Lynchian heaven” Loud & Quiet – Great Spans Of Muddy Time (10/10)
“Radiant yet seamless art-pop” Uncut 8/10
“A diverse, satisfying whole” MOJO 4/5
“Bewildering, gorgeous and riveting” The Line of Best Fit 9/10
“Genuinely original” Electronic Sound
“Near-perfect pop” Record Collector 4/5