Andrew Eaton Lewis - Tourist Information (Official Video)

In 2018 Andrew Eaton Lewis moved from the centre of Edinburgh to the edge of the Outer Hebrides, where he now lives in an abandoned clifftop hotel on a former RAF radar station.
Tourism, his debut album for Wee Studio Records, is a collection of evocative, poetic and interconnected songs shaped by that experience. They are songs about feeling like a tourist in someone else’s culture, about the ‘mainland’ becoming somewhere on the edge of your experience, and ultimately about whether we are all just tourists on Earth, on a brief visit from somewhere more permanent that we return to afterwards.
Andrew’s music - as Seafieldroad and a member of the band Swimmer One - has previously found its way to a Hollywood movie, daytime Radio One, and numerous theatre shows, festivals and short films. He has shared stages with Emma Pollock, Ricky Ross, Rachel Sermanni, Withered Hand and RM Hubbert, among others. His music has won widespread acclaim from critics, who have variously compared it to John Cale, Belle and Sebastian, Prefab Sprout, the Pet Shop Boys and the Blue Nile.
Tourism is a creative leap forward for a songwriter who, while critically lauded, has remained under the radar. Produced by Keith Morrison, with additional contributions from guitarist Scott C Park, it sees Andrew drawing on both Hebridean culture and the influence of some of his favourite songwriters (Paddy McAloon, Mark Eitzel, Kate Bush, Thom Yorke, Jane Siberry and Rufus Wainwright) to carve out a niche that is distinctly his own - a Hebridean songwriter ‘adrift from the mainland but not of the island’, as he puts it on The Mainland.
In addition to ten new original songs, the album includes two contrasting cover versions. Sad Country Boy is an unlikely and radical reinvention of Country Boy by Wee Studio label mates Peat & Diesel, drawing out the hidden melancholy in the song. And in keeping with Tourism’s exploration of mortality and returning to nature, the album closes with a version of Find the River by R.E.M. More Michael Nyman than Michael Stipe, Andrew’s take on this classic song was first heard in 2021 as the closing track on A Carnival of Sorts, a compilation of R.E.M covers by musicians from all over the world, curated for R.E.M’s 40th anniversary by God is in the TV.
When he’s not making music, Andrew spends his time developing new arts projects for the Mental Health Foundation and his own Lewis-based company, sruth-mara. For the past three years he has also programmed the Hebridean Dark Skies Festival, bringing an eclectic mix of guests to the Isle of Lewis including Karine Polwart, Kathryn Joseph, Robin Ince and Chris Lintott.
What people have said about Andrew’s previous work:
‘A lovely album. A late contender for one of the best of the year.’ Gideon Coe, 6 Music
‘It's the sort of record that they - the Mark Eitzels and the Paddy McAloons - used to make… an adult pop record with heart and brains.’ The Guardian
‘Captivating to the point of hypnosis.’ Drowned in Sound
‘He crafts songs that sound like minimalist classical composers working on adventurous ballads for REM. This album will either win the Mercury prize or disappear into fervent cult obscurity. It’s so good it deserves no compromise in between.’ The Herald
A quietly majestic thing. As irresistible as a warm hearth on a snowy day, these songs do for Scotland’s east coast what the Blue Nile’s did for the city of Glasgow.’ Scotland on Sunday
'The songs glow with a sense of sincere, melancholic wonderment... An album to get lost in.' The List
'A heartbreaking and delicate album... a great piece of work.' Sunday Mail
‘Strides ahead of the curve.' The Skinny
www.weestudio.co.uk
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