Liverpool’s NOVELTY ISLAND Announces New Album 'Jigsaw Causeway' Released 3rd October 2025 (9x9 Records)
Preorder - https://www.9x9records.co.uk/shop
Listen To Lead Single ‘Rainy’ Released 30th April 2025
Stream and share - https://ditto.fm/rainy-novelty-island
Listen on YouTube - HERE
Download With Exclusive Bandcamp B-Side ‘Blood Pressure Music’
https://noveltyisland.bandcamp.com/album/rainy-single
Liverpool’s Novelty Island (aka Tom McConnell) are delighted to announce their new album Jigsaw Causeway, set for release on 3rd October 2025 via Liverpool independent labels 9x9 Records (vinyl) and Ripe Records (digital).
Inspired by the fuzzed-out, woozy production of Grandaddy, Beck and Boards of Canada, Jigsaw Causeway is a darker collection of surreal, melancholic lo-fi pop songs than previous NI releases.
As with the rest of his back catalogue, the new album will feature McConnell’s artwork in a range of styles, from papier-mâché sculptures, to lo-fi animation and claymation, this time accompanied by his first gallery exhibition inspired by the songs. These works will also feature on the artwork for the singles and the album sleeve, which is made from over 50,000 jigsaw pieces.
To celebrate the album news, new single ‘Rainy’ is set for release on 30th April 2025 via Ripe Records, available to stream now on all good digital service providers.
Commenting on the track, McConnell says: “Rainy is another celebration of bad weather. It’s a big jangly love song drenched in stompy, shimmering Rickenbackers inspired by Oasis and Big Star. It’s another ‘jigsaw’ song which pieces together a guitar riff with a separate tune that was originally a slower ballad…”
Composed by utilising fragments of music in a variety of combinations, pieced together like a jigsaw, the album began life in early 2024 in the unlikely setting of Aberhosan, Wales. Drum and guitar tracks were put to tape on a very heavy cassette recorder, surrounded by sheep. These tracks then travelled—via a room overflowing with keyboards in Oxford—to Kippax in Yorkshire, at the invitation of Britain's oldest mining brass band (The Kippax Band), and finally to McConnell's home studio in Liverpool.
Formed in 2019 while McConnell was studying at Abbey Road Institute, Novelty Island’s hook-filled dream pop channels surrealism and Northern melancholy through classic songwriting. The project is led by Liverpool-based songwriter and producer, Tom McConnell, who describes the sound as “Paul McCartney having an argument with Bernard Black”—eclectic songs inspired by childhood, motorways, trains, old televisions, cowboys, space, birds and balloons.
After a series of psychedelic EPs, the debut Novelty Island album How Are You Coping With This Century? was released in Autumn 2021. McConnell then turned to recordings he'd made as a student at Abbey Road Institute for the second Novelty Island album, Wallsend Weekend Television. The album was released in March 2023 and was followed by a 10-date UK headline tour.
Both Novelty Island albums have received five-star reviews from Shindig! Magazine and R'n'R as well as support from MOJO, BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing and Absolute Radio amongst others. The psychedelic, papier-mâché-prop-filled Novelty Island live band have performed at Glastonbury Festival and toured the UK extensively as a headline act and support to Sea Power, The Pale White, Scott Lavene and China Crisis.
Further album details and live dates will be announced over the coming months.
Jigsaw Causeway album tracklist:
Jigsaw Causeway
Northern Nowhere
Someone Disappearing
Foam Animals
Apollo
Floating
The Only Train Driver In England
An Orange Goodbye
Novelty Island online:
https://www.novelty-island.com
https://www.instagram.com/_noveltyisland
https://www.tiktok.com/@noveltyisland
https://www.facebook.com/noveltyisland
https://www.youtube.com/@NoveltyIsland
https://www.patreon.com/c/noveltyisland
https://noveltyisland.bandcamp.com
More info:
Novelty Island began at Abbey Road in 2019 while McConnell was studying at Abbey Road Institute. They released 2 EPs in 2020 and recorded songs for their first two albums, How Are You Coping With This Century? and Wallsend Weekend Television, at Abbey Road's Studio 2 and Studio 3, RAK and Damon Albarn's Studio 13. Both albums were released on Think Like A Key (USA/Worldwide) and 9X9 Records (UK) on CD / Vinyl / Cassette. These releases, along with the 2024 Taped Over EP, have received great support from BBC 6Music, BBC Introducing, Absolute Radio, Shindig, Tim's Twitter Listening Party, MOJO Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, RnR, The Fader, NARC, Bandcamp and more.
The Novelty Island live band have performed at Glastonbury, Moseley Folk Festival, and Sound City Liverpool. Their surreal prop-filled show has taken them on multiple headline tours with sell-out hometown Liverpool shows and support slots with Sea Power, The Pale White, Scott Lavene, The Dream Machine, Trudy & The Romance, Demob Happy, High Llamas and Wesley Gonzalez. In 2023, McConnell toured Novelty Island as a solo act with an animated TV supporting China Crisis and joined the Outsider Artists agency roster.
Prior to Novelty Island, McConnell's TV ME and Tom Low projects toured supported Mercury-nominee C Duncan, BC Camplight and Flyte, performed at Green Man Festival and worked with Deltasonic Records and Bill Ryder-Jones. A Tom Low-released EP recorded entirely on a phone received critical acclaim from CLASH, Bido Lito, and BBC 6 Music. Before these projects, McConnell performed under his own name, supporting legendary acts around the UK like Squeeze, Glenn Tilbrook, Ian McCulloch & lan Brodie, Steve Cradock and China Crisis among many others. He was also endorsed by Hofner Guitars and shared online by Paul McCartney's official social media channels.
