Oxford-based singer-songwriter Richard Walters is today announcing his long-overdue fifth album, ‘Golden Veins’, and sharing the lead-single ‘Kintsugi’ alongside a run of UK dates including London’s The Waiting Room on February 6th. It’s been 10 years since Walters released his critically-acclaimed debut full-length, ‘The Animal’, and the nine songs that constitute this new record–released May 8th via Cooking Vinyl–reveal a truly original artist in a constant state of evolution and reinvention.

The first taste of the new record, ‘Kintsugi’ uses the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer (resulting in the golden veins of the album title) as a metaphor for Walters’ relationship with his wife, his newfound sense of creativity and inspiration and the very nature of being human. “When she and I got together ten years ago,” he says, “I was a mess; I was taking too many drugs, drinking too much, not living as well as I should, and as a result I felt very fragmented. I was broken and she put me back together. But it’s also about rediscovering the joy in life and music again. Kintsugi is an artform that highlights imperfections and for me, when I meet new people, I’m always relieved to find out that they’ve got flaws too. Those small cracks make us more interesting and stronger.”

In late 2016 Walters found himself in a strange place. “I’d been making music since the age of 18, frequently full-time but occasionally not, and had hit something of a writer’s roadblock. Partnered with a slightly jaded perception of the music industry, I felt I’d come to the end of my creative run. I started considering my options and making moves away from the making of music.” In September of that year, however–one month before the release of Walters’ fourth album, ‘A.M.’–he and his wife found out they were expecting a baby. That, naturally, changed everything.

He returned to the UK and began digging through his collection to find the albums that had been formative for him – Cocteau Twins, Ride, Slowdive, Radiohead – and began formulating his own ideas, laid out simply with piano and vocals. He sent them to producer Patrick J Pearson, who’d send back “gorgeous, full productions.” The pair kept going back and forth, writing in their spare moments between work, father and family duties, and whatever else was happening in their personal lives. The resulting ‘Golden Veins’ album is the sound of both an artist and a person reborn, re-inspired and re-invigorated, and a heartfelt reminder of just how beautiful and powerful and necessary a thing that can be. It arrives in a ten-year career which has seen Walters release four albums and four EPs, have his music features on such US TV shows at Grey’s Anatomy, Bones and CSI: Miami among others, and collaborate as a songwriter with the likes of Joe Henry, Simon Armitage and Alison Moyet.