Marske-by-the-Sea artist Cape Cub will release his debut EP, Closer, on 25th March - with its title track streaming now.

Having accumulated huge numbers of plays across SoundCloud and Spotify with his trio of 2015 uploads - as well as almost 1,000,000 listeners on Mr Suicide Sheep’s YouTube channel for the outstanding ‘Keep Me In Mind’ - emerging artist, Cape Cub returns this February with a new track, ‘Closer’, the first song to be taken from his upcoming debut EP of the same name. Cape Cub will also be hitting the road in the UK throughout March, with his London headline debut penciled in on 30th March at The Waiting Room.

Inspired by beautiful landscapes and particularly the vast open spaces surrounding his hometown - tiny Marske-by-the-Sea - Chad Male, aka Cape Cub, perfectly captures a snapshot of the calming friction between an ever-changing coastline and the gritty, naturally alluring post-industrial North on his debut EP, Closer.

Raised on his dad’s diet of Bowie, Thin Lizzy and The Beatles, Chad first picked up a guitar at age nine and soon found himself making his first - initially messy - forays into songcraft. Nonetheless, his early efforts landed him in a string of noisy indie bands, and lit a fuse for what was to follow next: a eureka moment in his mum’s loft, where ‘Swim’ was written, using a super-lo-fi practice amp — a world away from the bold lights of London where he finally finished the soothing, people searching compositions now collected under the Cape Cub banner today.

Having enlisted the help of James Earp and Luke Fitton, producers of lead single ‘Closer’ and ‘Keep Me In Mind’ respectively, Chad moved out of the attic and added more flesh to ‘Swim’ and another new track, ‘The Start’, at the studio he’s based at near home. The final EP became a document of isolation, of longing, of questions of growing up, of questions of home, and of whether you should stay or go, all wrapped up with Chad’s sweetly melancholic voice and cinematic melodies, which mirror the swell of the North Sea surf seamlessly.

Nodding to the iconic storytelling, vividly human imagery and natural showmanship of Springsteen, Death Cab For Cutie and Brandon Flowers, as well as the new wave of contemporary British alternative electronic and pop producers in Shura and The Japanese House, the EP’s lead track, ‘Closer’ is a startlingly well-observed note to “fragility and the painful side of love, when you give your all and there seems to be nothing on the other side.” That subtle lyrical despondency is flipped upside down with Chad’s sensitive vocal, soporific guitars and softly churning beats coming to the fore, burnishing ‘Closer’ to a positive, hopeful sheen. It’s a fitting introduction to an EP rooted in the vitalness and warmth of human relationships.