Murkage Dave announces new album Brut Thoughts, featuring members of Yard Act, Young Fathers, WU LYF, Lauren Auder & more. Out March 6th via The Outlet (!K7 Music). New single ‘RNA’ Out Now
Murkage Dave announces new album Brut Thoughts, featuring members of Yard Act, Young Fathers, WU LYF, Lauren Auder & more
Out March 6th via The Outlet (!K7 Music)
New single ‘RNA’ Out Now
Murkage Dave announces his forthcoming album Brut Thoughts, set for release March 6th via The Outlet, Dave’s new imprint on !K7 Music. To mark the announcement, Dave shares the new single ‘RNA’, a tender, intimate track, produced by Kiddus and featuring backing vocals from Young Fathers and Kiddus. The track explores the pressures and contradictions of modern life, masculinity, grief, and resilience. The announcement follows the release of his single ‘Swordfight In A Chicken Shop’ which has received widespread support from BBC Radio 6 Music and Clash magazine, who praised Dave as “an always-engrossing lyricist”.
Speaking about ‘RNA’, Dave says:
“This song spilled out of me across several months, watching my dad get ill, and then dealing with his passing. It's funny but I learned so much about him I didn't know during this time. It was bittersweet.
The idea of being a ‘real man’ is often connected to physical strength, wielding power and not showing emotion. But for me being real can be about other things; it can be about owning your weaknesses and insecurities, being able to talk these things through. Wanting to do better. It can be about being able to admit when you just can't take it any more, but still somehow gathering the strength to keep going.”
The new single anchors the emotional landscape of Dave’s forthcoming album Brut Thoughts, which sees Dave connect the inner turbulence of modern life with the fractured world around him. It’s an unfiltered reflection on everything from immigration and political extremism to internet culture, overstimulation, and the power of community. The album channels the anger and disillusionment of the present moment, yet refuses to lose sight of the possibility of hope. “It’s millennial meme culture music,” he explains. “The cacophony of what’s going on in my head spilling out into song. Living in the shadow of 80s Thatcherite/Reaganite economic policy, the broken social contract, the unkept promise of a life we were supposed to get if we did our bit.”
One of the UK’s most singular voices, Murkage Dave has spent the last decade crafting a body of work that refuses to fit neatly into any genre box. Sonically, Brut Thoughts sits between outsider pop and political realism, a cathartic soundtrack for life in late capitalism, drawing inspiration from Talking Heads, Sampha, The Smiths, and The Streets. His music, loosely pop but informed by indie, outsider art, and an instinct for storytelling, is built on honesty, empathy, and fearless social commentary.
The title Brut Thoughts draws from Jean Dubuffet’s Art Brut movement - a celebration of outsider art and raw, untrained creativity. Dubuffet’s belief that everyone has valid artistic expression resonated deeply with Dave. Brut also means both “raw” in French and “unsweetened” in English, and the album channels that same spirit of unfiltered honesty. The title also references the classic Brut fragrance, a scent tied to the working-class masculinity of his grandad’s and dad’s generation.
“In a way,” Dave says, “this album is all the things my dad could have said if he wasn’t hemmed in by the socio-economic factors of the 80s, being chased by the National Front and being a parent.” Even in its rawness, the record holds onto a quiet belief that things can change, a thread of hope running beneath the heaviness. The sentiment carries extra weight, as the album and specifically the new single ‘RNA’ was made during the time of his father’s passing in early 2024.
The album came together in an unorthodox, nomadic way, across living rooms, spare rooms, and borrowed studios in London, Manchester, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and the Danish countryside. “Like most musicians in London I can’t afford a studio,” says Dave. “So I put a call out to see who’d let me crash and write. I ended up in right-wing and left-wing parts of the country , I spent a lot of time in the Reform stronghold of Ashfield but also places like Bristol, Margate, Cardiff, Leicester, Manchester. I even stayed in James from Yard Act’s loft in Leeds as well as a guesthouse in Denmark.”
The record’s collaborative spirit is woven into its DNA, featuring contributions from James from Yard Act - his first under new solo moniker KONOPINSKY, Kayus from Young Fathers, Ellery from WU LYF, and Lauren Auder. Touring with Yard Act in 2024 also served as a creative catalyst. “All the music being played on the tour bus really opened up avenues for me,” says Dave. “It inspired me to start my radio show The Outlet on Refuge Worldwide, and all of this bled into the music.” Beyond his songwriting, Dave continues to shape UK culture through curation - from his formative Manchester club night Murkage Club to Tonga, the touring party co-founded with Mike Skinner, and his radio work, he has always blurred the lines between music, community, and social consciousness.
Across his career, Murkage Dave has developed a reputation for his distinctive songwriting, blending vulnerability with razor-sharp observations on modern British life, earning him a cult following and praise from Pharrell Williams, Iggy Pop, BBC Radio 6 Music, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Clash, Complex, Highsnobiety, and Vogue. His debut album Murkage Dave Changed My Life (2018) amassed over 12 million Spotify streams, and follow-up The City Needs A Hero (2022) reached #10 on the UK iTunes Chart and #15 on the UK Independent Chart.
Murkage Dave Live
19 Mar - London, Village Underground - Tickets
20 Mar - Manchester, YES - Pink Room - Tickets
Brut Thoughts Tracklist
Brut Thoughts Theme
Swordfight In A Chicken Shop
Putting On A Party
RNA
Generation Left On Read (feat. KONOPINKSY)
Friends And Family (Interlude)
Brut Pop (feat. Meme Gold)
Running Outta Road (feat. Trainee)
Mortgage Guy (Interlude)
One 4 Me & U
Money Isn't Real (feat. Kiddus)
Brut Thoughts Reprise
How To Subtly Disappear (feat. Lauren Auder)
Pre-Order Album & Stream Single HERE
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