Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall have teamed up to form the new project The WAEVE – announcing details of their first track and an intimate London launch show. Check out all the details exclusively on NME first below.

On May 5, the former Blur guitarist-turned-solo star and the former Pipettes member-turned-Mark Ronson collaborator and singer-songwriter will share first taste of their material ‘Something Pretty’ via Transgressive Records.

Ahead of that, they’ll be playing a special launch show at The Lexington in London on May 4. Tickets will go on sale from 10am on Friday (April 22) and will be available here.

“We are greatly looking forward to unleashing our new sound live at the Lexington next month,” the new band said in a statement. “We’ve been locked away this year, busy translating the varied sounds of our songs into a dynamic live show, with the help of some great musician friends. We invite you to surrender to the world of The WAEVE.”

The duo came together after exchanging messages during the lockdown Christmas of 2020. They soon started writing songs before their collaboration “gave rise to an unexpected sonic universe”, a statement explains.

Inspired by “a shared love of English folk music, storytelling and the associated landscapes of this beleaguered island,” their music soon turned into something of their own, with “a cinematic breadth whilst maintaining an honest intimacy” and “guitars, saxophones AND strings lifting the songs into other stratospheres”. Their upcoming music is said to speak to “themes of oblivion and surrender, juxtaposed with suggestions of hopefulness and light”.

More new music from The WAEVE will be revealed in the months ahead.

Last year saw Coxon release the comic book score album ‘Superstate‘, as well as tease more activity from Blur. After bandmate Damon Albarn claimed that Blur had been in talks and “had an idea” of how to make their return, the guitarist told NME: “I was privy to that discussion. It started as a discussion, but didn’t really end as one.”

Asked if he was too busy with various projects to pursue a Blur reunion, he told us: “Having a lot on your plate is a sort of chaos. It’s like a massive English breakfast at the moment. If someone snuck on a grilled tomato I probably wouldn’t notice. I’m up for it, if everyone digs the idea.

“I think a lot of people have decided in some sort of way that they were living life in a really strange way that wasn’t actually suiting them very well and chopped away a lot of the stuff that they don’t need. I’ve been trying to do that a little bit.”

Coxon added: “That’s always been the thing with Blur – they’ll do it when they really need to and not for any other reason. It doesn’t really seem genuine to just get back together and just do gigs for a bit of spondage. We need to have some sort of focus for how we would work.”