Hue and Cry have announced plans to celebrate their 40th anniversary throughout 2024 with a series of EPs and a UK tour.
The soul-pop duo will release 12 separate four-track ‘Labours Of Love’ EPs – each arriving on the second Friday of each month – with a YouTube documentary series dropping five-minute episodes every fourth Friday.
It will follow the bands early days in Glasgow in the mid-’80s.
The first EP and dropped last Friday (January 12), fearturing four previously-unheard demos: Close The Door, Love In Word, Dangerous Wreck and I Refuse are the songs featured .
Musician Pat Kane says in a statement: “Well doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? Thanks to my brother Gregory’s careful and patient curation of thousands of items from our musical past, we can bring music lovers a panorama of 40 years of our creativity, in pop, soul, jazz, media, videos and much else.
“It’s an intriguing, looking over four decades, how much you change and how much you stay the same… Maybe listeners will have the same kind of rich memory trip as Gregory and I got, as we pulled this together.”
Greg Kane adds: “We wanted to use our 40th anniversary as an opportunity to dive deep into the many boxes of demo cassette tapes, DAT tapes, CDRs, press clippings and old photographs we’ve accumulated throughout the years.
“I’ve been glancing at all these boxes for years wondering when, where and why to start looking through them. Wind forward to 2024 and over the last three years of archiving, I’ve retrieved, recorded, and restored over 180 unreleased tracks comprising of live performances, demos, album outtakes and interviews along with nearly 200 press clippings and over 200 photographs.
“All of these assets have enabled us to accurately chart Pat & I’s musical journey over the last 40 years, and what a journey it has been!”
Listen to the first instalment of ‘Labours Of Love’ – ‘Episode One: Beginnings | 1984-1985’ below.
A tour will also follow this year, “featuring a carefully curated setlist that spans the entirety of Hue and Cry’s amazing career” with a full band the promise of “a few surprises”, according to a press release.
Tickets for Hue and Cry’s UK tour are on sale now and available here. The full list of dates is below.
OCTOBER 2024
10 – The Tivoli Theatre, Aberdeen
11 – The Town House, Hamilton
12 – The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
17 – Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock
18 – The Albert Halls, Stirling
19 – Whitehall Theatre, Dundee
24 – Concert Hall, Perth
25 – Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow (Sold Out)
26 – Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow
NOVEMBER 2024
1 – Glasshouse Sage2, Gateshead (Sold Out)
2 – Tramshed, Cardiff
7 – RNCM Theatre, Manchester
8 – Town Hall, Birmingham
9 – O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London