A MAN CALLED ADAM

LEGENDARY ELECTRONIC DUO CONFIRM
RESIDENCY AT MIMA GALLERY + UK SUMMER TOUR DATES

NEW ALBUM:
‘THE GIRL WITH A HOLE IN HER HEART’
SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION VINYL – OUT 21 JULY, VIA OTHER RECORDS

To celebrate the release of their new album ‘The Girl With A Hole in Her Heart’, A MAN CALLED ADAM will be out and about this summer, with a selection of DJ dates and festival shows.

The pair have also detailed a special residency at the MIMA gallery (The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) throughout the Summer.

The duo’s MIMA residency is part of a major new exhibition – ‘People Powered; Stories from the River Tees’ – and in collaboration with The National Portrait Gallery, MIMA and official Tech Partners Pioneer DJ & Pro Audio, which will see AMCA’s Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones premiering specially commissioned sound and video works. In addition, they’ll also be curating a North East-centric vinyl listening collection and hosting a series ‘Sunday Music Sessions’ celebrating the incredible dynamism and history of Teesside’s music scene.

Elsewhere, A Man Called Adam will be hitting the road for a series of in-store dates, festival appearances and listening parties nationwide and beyond. The full list of AMCA events can be found below.

AMCA – SUMMER TOUR DATES / EVENTS

6th July – Phonica Records, London (in-store)
22nd July – MIMA, Middlesbrough**
Exhibition Launch Part
23rd July – MIMA, Middlesbrough.**
The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart – vinyl listening party, signings & DJ sets plus readings by Sally about the album and her childhood in Teesside.
30th July – We Are Love Festival, Brighton
5th August – Freight Island, Manchester
Sally DJ set with Huey Morgan
6th August – MIMA, Middlesbrough.**
Local success story Press On Vinyl deliver a talk about their rapid rise to prominence in the vinyl manufacturing scene and the bands, artists & labels they work with. Plus AMCA DJ set and vinyl listening session.
13th August – MIMA, Middlesbrough.**
Remembering The Rock Garden – honouring the legacy of Middlesbrough’s legendary Punk/ New Wave venue where bands like The Clash and Siouxsie and the Banshees performed regularly. With stories, images, DJ sets & vinyl listening party.
20th August – MIMA, Middlesbrough.**
Over The Border – A deep dive in to the history of Teesside’s oldest nightclub and first Reggae venue The Bongo Club and it’s lasting impact on the region. Dub and Reggae music and memories.
27th August – MIMA, Middlesbrough.**
The Teesside Scene – Journalists, artists and promoters discuss the current state of play in Teesside’s richly diverse music scene. With DJ sets, performances, spoken word, merch stalls and more.
2nd September – Woodbridge Festival, Suffolk
5th September – Café Del Mar, Ibiza
Sally DJ set

*****

The live dates come in support of AMCA’s brand new album, ‘The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart’, which will be released with a special Collector’s Edition coloured vinyl and booklet on 21st July 2023, via Other Records.

Praised by The Guardian as “one of the most potent, bittersweet records in their 35-year career”, the album also attracted warm words from The Crack who said: “Fusing gorgeous synth-pop, ambient, house and electronica this is Balearic on Tees and all rather thrilling.”

Their first new album since 2019’s ‘Farmarama’, ‘The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart’ is a Balearic record, though not one that’s inspired by those fabled Iberian sun-kissed beaches that stretch on forever and sunsets that stop you in your tracks. Rather, it’s a House record made for all night dancing in a decommissioned steelworks. It’s an ambient record that strolls a windswept coastline where lime-grass dunes rise and fall like slumbering megafauna. The album walks the ugly, lovely industrial coastline of the North East of England, stopping at points to soak up the breathtaking scenery and watch everyday life carrying on in the face of rapid deindustrialisation.

Over the album’s eleven tracks, A Man Called Adam perfectly capture both a time and place. While “Starlings” dances carefree like a murmuration and “The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart” trips back through snapshots of terrace house childhood whilst rolling on a retro electro bassline, “Hidden Dragon”’s low end bass evokes heavy machinery looming large on the horizon. Gorgeous ambient soundscapes like “In Favour Of Storms” glide gracefully as shift sirens and field recordings of demolition blasts lace with “Ammonite”’s controlled kettle drum rolls into an addictive Lil’ Louis pulse.

Talking about the effect of her local environment on ‘The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart’, Sally says:

“Spending this precious time back in the wild coastal and industrial landscapes of Teesside has stirred up that sense of awe at the steely, elemental authority of nature, and in human resilience. The melodies, sounds and lyrics are sometimes flinty and angular, sometimes fluid and fun (because the people are very funny here), and I hope the record reflects those feelings of human fragility and deep time that I always feel looking out to sea on stormy days.”

The Girl With A Hole In Her Heart was made in Teesside. The sleeve photos for Fight or Flight and the album (along with previous singles Starlings and Ammonite) were taken by Robin Dale in Teesside in the 1970s.

With doctoral research that spans the fields of sound, technology and lyric form, they have produced soundworks for BAFTA winning director Mark Jenkin, The British Museum and BBC Radio 4 among others and this summer they’re creating a series of works and events for a blockbuster exhibition – ‘PEOPLE POWERED: Stories From The River Tees’ – a collaboration between MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art part of Teesside University) and The National Portrait Gallery about the River Tees and its cultural impact (opening 22 July).

A Man Called Adam are Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones. Described by Test Pressing as ‘Britain’s unsung pop heroes’, they have been making genre bending electronic music since the birth of acid house in the UK, releasing their first single on Acid Jazz in 1988. Their journey has since seen them create Balearic records that stand as blueprints for the genre (Barefoot In The Head, Estelle, Easter Song), as well as being pioneers of London’s underground house scene via releases on their label, Other Records.