Teenage Fanclub Recorded Their 13th Album on a Remote Scottish Island — “There Was You” Is the Beautifully Melodic Proof

Teenage Fanclub recorded their 13th studio album at Black Bay Studio on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera, surrounded by crashing sea and ancient ruins, with a Domus church organ and a room full of synthesizers at their disposal. The result is Do Not Dare to Dream, out October 9 on Merge Records, and it is a record that sounds exactly like a band deeply attuned to where they are and who they’re with. Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley, Euros Childs, Francis Macdonald, and David McGowan have played together long enough that neither of the principal songwriters bothers to work up arrangements before entering the studio. They wait for everyone else’s input. Thirty-plus years in and that instinct still holds.

Second single “There Was You” is the album’s opening track and a classic lost-and-found song in the best Fanclub tradition: warm, melodic, quietly luminous. The video was filmed on location on Great Bernera and the surrounding coast by longtime collaborator Donald Milne, and it captures the atmosphere of the sessions well. The title of the album pushes back gently on hollow optimism — “those ‘dare to dream’ sentiments are kind of ridiculous,” Blake says — while still landing somewhere quietly hopeful, which is exactly what Teenage Fanclub have always known how to do.

An extensive UK and Ireland tour runs through November, with several dates already sold out. Pre-order the album below.

Pre-order Do Not Dare to Dream ↗