Hugo Race performing at Yours and Owls (Wollongong) in support of his first solo album NO BUT ITS TRUE. Special guests Leek & The War Wick Tragedy.

HUGO RACE returns to Australia and announces an East Coast Tour today in support of his first solo album NO BUT ITS TRUE due for released June 10. RACE will kick off the tour in Sydney on Friday June 15 at NOTES and then head up the coast, eventually finalising the run in Byron Bay two weeks later. Special guests for the whole tour are Leek & The War Wick Tragedy who have just been announced as the first band to sign with Races new record label, Rough Velvet Records (MGM).

HUGO RACE will be showcasing tracks from his debut album as a solo artist NO BUT ITS TRUE. The album explores the theme of love, interpreting covers from a maelstrom of music eras going back as far as the fifties, but including greats such as Im On Fire and is reflective of Hugos love of primitive folk and blues songs from decades past.

I wanted to zoom in on lyrics, strip away arrangement and production and deliver these sentiments with just a guitar and some minimal overdubs........ Hugo Race

Internationally acclaimed Australian singer, songwriter and producer HUGO RACE is a prolific and visionary performer. A founding member of NICK CAVES BAD SEEDS and the seminal Australian 80s cult band THE WRECKERY, RACE has released 20 albums and collaborated with artists from Sao Paolo to Rome, Berlin, London, Tucson, Brussels, Warsaw, Mali, Africa and beyond. Born in Melbourne, RACE has spent most of the last 25 years living in Italy, France, Germany, UK and the USA. His international True Spirit collective he has produced 14 HUGO RACE & TRUE SPIRIT albums. Various collaborations span another ten or more albums, spread over several continents including his USA project DIRTMUSIC (their BKO album, recorded in Bamako, Africa cited as one of the best albums of 2010), the French-American band LILIUM, the Brazilian project MOSES COMPLEX, the London-based PANTALEIMON, the Berlin-based ROGALLS ELECTRIC CIRCUS SIDESHOW, the Sicilian band SEPIATONE, the European supergroup SONGS WITH OTHER STRANGERS with PJ Harvey, producer John Parish, and the Italian multimedia project MEROLA MATRIX. In 2010, RACES album Between Hemispheres received rave reviews globally. In August RACE will be seen on ROCKWIZ one of Australias favourite music quiz shows.

LEEK & THE WAR WICK TRAGEDY are excited to be accompanying Hugo on the tour. The band is the brainchild of Melbournian Luke Humphries known to some as LEEK who is one of the relatively few darker composers emerging from the youth of today, and record producer Scott Blackman who together, combine and draw influences from great classic artists such as The Beatles, Leonard Cohen as well as contemporaries like Brian Jonestown Massacre to make their sophisticated, but raw sound. Together they have extensive touring and recording credits affording them a steady platform from which to launch THE WAR WICK TRAGEDY. LEEKS PROPHET IN A PARKING LOT received airplay on TRIPLE J and independent radio stations across Australia and his debut release Live And Let Love sold many copies. More recently Take The World With Your Smile achieved number 1 selling artist at Fist 2 Face in Melbourne on the first day of release and was a trending topic on Twitter that day, furthermore LEEKS YouTube channel became the number two most subscribed to musician in Australia within its first month of activation. The band have just announced their first record label signing to Rough Velvet Records and their first single release on the label THE ONE.

Together HUGO RACE & LEEK & THE WAR WICK TRAGEDY are sure to delight audiences with their laidback and super suave performances.