Back where he belongs ... Edwyn Collins with his Rickenbacker guitar
Given the amount of contentious musical comeback announcements being made lately, one that surely no-one would be unhappy to see seems to have slipped by under the radar. According to the MySpace site administered for him by his son Will, Edwyn Collins has found a new home on the Heavenly record label, and will be releasing his latest solo album Home Again in September.
Collins is a legendary figure in certain indie circles, one of the main movers behind seminal Glasgow label Postcard Records in the early eighties, thanks to his leading role in their flagship band Orange Juice. Most might be familiar with his work, however, from the ubiquitous international solo hit A Girl Like You, released in 1994 to airwave-commandeering success.
It's not quite the Spice Girls, but fans of Collins - and there are still many out there, mostly the type who like classic novels and dancing awkwardly to Franz Ferdinand - will breathe a deeper sigh than the followers of any of the other acts that have recently made comebacks.
In 2005, at the age of 46, Collins was struck down by a brain haemorrhage. He finally made it home from hospital six months later, but not before enduring another haemorrhage, cranial surgery, and a bout of MRSA - not to mention speculation about whether he would ever be able to write or record music again. Although his partner and manager Grace Maxwell released upbeat statements throughout, the fear for his life must surely have crossed his family's mind at one point or another.
A slow recuperation has filled the intervening two years. Although the new album was actually largely recorded before he fell ill, its title track (which can be heard at Collins' MySpace site) seems an appropriate comeback, a bittersweet, reflective torch song in a vaguely Scott Walker-ish mould.
And Collins hasn't even started yet, according to a statement he apparently penned for the site in the third person. "There's going to be a single," it reads, "a video, interviews and even some live stuff, if he has his way. All the stuff a working musician does to support a record. Normal life."
