FEVER Dream, Ben Watt's second solo album in quick succession after a 31-year hiatus between the first two, will be released on April 8 in his own Unmade Road label via Caroline International.

Since his North Marine Drive debut in 1983, Watt had poured 16 years into nine albums as songwriter, performer and producer with Tracey Thorn in Everything But The Girl and spent a further ten at the helm of his electronic label Buzzin’ Fly.

The former University of Hull student also has enjoyed a radio residency on BBC 6Music and written two memoirs, 1996's Patient and 2014's Romany And Tom, a portrait of his parents’ marriage.

Watt returned to his roots as a solo singer and songwriter in 2014 with Hendra, pipping Anna Calvi and Blood Orange to win Best Difficult Second Album at the AIM Independent Music Awards. He played Fibbers in York in November that year, with Suede's Bernard Butler by his side.

Fever Dream, produced by Watt at London’s RAK Studio 2, takes Hendra’s sonic template of open-tuned folk-jazz, distorted string-bent rock and soulful rumination, then adds a fresh grainy intensity. It also renews key partnerships with Hendra’s distinguished guitarist-sideman, the aforementioned Bernard Butler, and engineer Bruno Ellingham, while sprinkling guest vocal cameos from Boston’s dream-folk singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler and Hiss Golden Messenger’s M.C. Taylor.

"At the album’s heart, I just wanted to deepen existing relationships," says Watt. "Two years of playing live with Bernard has created a strong bond; the music we make feels spontaneous, ardent, unsentimental. We just went in and did most of it live. Small room, small band. A harder edge. Instruments spilling into each other."

The pair are joined on Fever Dream by percussionist and long-time ally Martin Ditcham, who played on Talk Talk’s Spirit Of Eden, and new double bassist Rex Horan, whose credits include Laura Marling’s Once I Was An Eagle and the Neil Cowley Trio. "Rex brilliantly blurs the boundaries between folk, jazz and rock," says Watt.

"‘I chose the guests to suit. Marissa Nadler’s sound is gothic and gauzy but tender and revealing. I pictured her with me on the key closing track, New Year Of Grace, which is a kind of answer to the album’s opener, Gradually. She was in London for 24 hours recently; I just doorstepped her on Twitter and she said 'yes'."