DAMIEN Rice has announced that his first new album in more than eight years will be released this Autumn.
The Kildare singer songwriter performed a sell-out two-and-a-half hour gig in Dublin on Tuesday evening, and promised the 300 fans at the venue that a new record is on the way.
"We're currently mixing it," he said, adding that the final track list has yet to be decided.
Rice’s last record, 9, was released in 2006 and was the follow-up to his acclaimed debut, O, which sold two million copies.
Tuesday’s performance in Dublin was Rice’s first Irish show since his appearance at the Electric Burma tribute concert for activist Aung San Suu Kyi in Dublin in June 2012.
Tickets for his Irish comeback at the venue where he played his first solo gigs, Whelan’s, sold out in sixty seconds last week.
He hasn't played a full show in Ireland since supporting Leonard Cohen in Kilmainham, Dublin, in June 2008.
"You could literally hear a pin drop throughout the whole show," says Whelan's booker Dave Allen.
Rice returned to Whelan’s as part of the venue’s 25th anniversary and he played several new songs, before inviting two fans on stage to sing Cold Water, a duet with his former musical partner Lisa Hannigan which appeared on his debut album.
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