Welsh maverick artist shares second single ever from 40th album

Stephen Price

Eilir Pierce – an artist and filmmaker with more than 30 years of music-making and over 500 songs under his belt, has shared his second single ever – a midlife crisis inspired synth-pop anthem featuring Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat.

Despite releasing 39 albums over a career spanning decades, one of Wales’ most enigmatic musicians had never released a standalone single until earlier this year, and continuing to defy expectation, he’s back with another.

Coach, the second single from Eilir Pierce’s forthcoming 40th album Half-Time, stars Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap appearing as The Coach in the track and video.

Welsh musicmaker and filmmaker Eilir Pierce released Coach this month, during his full Edinburgh Fringe run of Half-Time — a 50-minute synth-pop cabaret about ambition, ageing and the ridiculous hope that the second half might still be the one where everything changes.

Pierce moved to Glasgow in midlife to finally make the pop record and live show he had been circling for decades. Then he persuaded one of his indie heroes, Aidan Moffat, to play the voice inside his head.

He shared: “Actors go to Hollywood. I came to Glasgow. As a kid, so many of the bands that meant something to me seemed to come from or orbit around here — Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, The Delgados, Primal Scream, and Arab Strap. So it felt surreal to come here years later and end up working with Aidan Moffat.”

Although Half-Time uses football as its central metaphor, Pierce is not a football fan. In fact, that is part of the point.

“I’ve never really got into football. I think there was a crossroads when I was about ten where I could either become obsessed with football or become obsessed with pop music. I chose pop music. Secretly, I think I’ve wanted to be a pop star ever since.”

Coach takes that childhood decision and turns it into a strange, funny and oddly moving pop song about midlife reckoning. In the world of Half-Time, Pierce wakes in a grubby celestial changing room after a physical and emotional collapse.

He thinks he has reached half-time in his life. The Coach tells him to stop looking back, toughen up, change tactics and get back out for the second half. Pierce is not so sure.

The song becomes a battle with the inner critic: that blunt, sardonic voice that tells you to stop complaining and get on with it, even when you no longer know if you want to play the game at all.

Musically, Coach is one of the clearest statements from Half-Time: keyboard-driven, theatrical, glam-leaning synth-pop with a boot-room swagger, brass flashes, drum-machine pulse and a surreal football-manager sermon at its centre.

After 39 self-released albums and more than 500 songs, Pierce wanted Half-Time to be different.

No more rushing out another home-recorded collection. This time he wanted to make something fully realised: an album, a live show and a strange pop world big enough to hold the panic, humour and absurdity of starting again at midlife.

The album was developed in Glasgow with producer Gavin Thomson, formerly of Findo Gask and The Pastels’ resident soundman, whose work includes collaborations with Stephen Pastel. The wider project also features Scottish collaborators including Carla J Easton, Paul Kelly of The Martial Arts, Dave Erskine Tunstall of The Langan Band, Jack Ellin of The Mary Column and The Glad Community Choir.

For Pierce, Moffat was always the dream voice for The Coach: sardonic, gruff, dryly funny and strangely wise. “Aidan was the voice I heard for The Coach before I knew if I could ask him. I imagined this figure who was part football manager, part inner critic, part tough-love guardian angel.

Half Time

His forthcoming 40th album, Half-Time, is a synth-pop musical about moving to a new city and attempting to become a pop star in middle age.

As well as featuring a guest appearance from Aidan Moffat, the album also features Mercury Prize-nominated artist Gwenno, and the project has also been realised as a live stage show and film, with Pierce performing a full run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.

His first single, Do-List captures the overloaded mind behind those plans.

Along with a clip from the recently released visual, Pierce shared a personal reflection on his first single release which sadly followed the recent death of his sister.

He wrote: “My first single “Do-List” was already scheduled to stream today, long before we lost my sister last week. I don’t really know what to say or feel about the release anymore. The chorus says, “heaven is a place with no list”, and today that line feels very different to me.

“So this one is dedicated to Elain.”

Eilir’s 40th album, Half-Time is released on 23 October 2026. He is set to perform at Edinburgh Fringe until 30 August 2026

Keep up to date with Eilir at his website and Instagram and hear more on Spotify.

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