Steve McQueen by Mike Marlin Released Today plus UK Tour with the Stranglers…

Mike Marlin ripped through 2011 being chosen as HMV ‘Next Big Thing’, releasing his debut album Nearly Man, touring the UK twice, singing disco with dwarves, smashing an office to pieces and vanishing for 3 months only to emerge triumphant with another 11 songs recorded in an undisclosed basement and mastered in Abbey Road.

Working with a new producer Catherine Marks (The Vaccines, Interpol, Foals and PJ Harvey) Steve McQueen was written during a session in Dublin with Eleanor McEvoy. Renowned for her virtuoso violin playing the plan was to lay strings over the new songs but Eleanor’s whirlwind of musical ideas and inappropriate stories led to this melancholy ode to the king of cool being committed to tape. Drawing early comparisons to Badly Drawn Boy and The National, the song pulls against the tempo, vocals stretch to breaking point and the instruments weave nostalgically around Mike’s baritone vocal.

Steve McQueen is the third single to be taken from Marlin’s second studio album ‘Man On The Ground’. The single released with video directed by Eyes On The Wall Production is the winning entry of AMP Productions short film competition ran before Christmas as announced on 15th February 2012 at Marlin Underground, an evening of Music, Films and Pizza.

Kookily charming, one of my favourites’  Goldierocks – 4Music / Selector Radio

‘Like the very best pop music from the 80’s yet timeless, fresh and relevant today’ Jim Benner, HMV

Melodic and unashamedly hooky, no shortage of big choruses and hummable bits here’ Bearded Magazine