The latest line-up news from Latitude Festival, The Green Man Festival and Bestival
Your Yorker guide to all things musical, both live and on record, for Week 9.
‘I do not use folk music, it is folk music that uses me’
The solo debut from the Guillemots front-man
In October last year, I was lucky enough to meet the mysterious Mr. Hudson at a post-gig gathering. He had it all. He had all the things I thought I wanted. I couldn’t stop staring at his bleached blonde hair. And he gave me a glass of Coke. A very fine chap indeed. At that time, I loved the music he made with his band The Library a number of years beforehand, but was relatively unfamiliar with his more recent work. Save of course, the smash hit ‘Supernova’ featuring Kanye West. This, I absolutely loved. I subsequently fell in love with the song ‘White lies’; also on Straight No Chaser, when I heard it on a bus one day. Infact, it’s accurate to say that I loved every post-Library Mr. Hudson song I came across. Fair enough, I only stumbled across two, but it’s a good start.
This album really is quite unlike any musical compilation I’ve come across in all of my 20 years. Twenty years alive that is, not 20 years reviewing music. My conclusion is really very simple. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. If a little confusing, I may add. The diversity of tracks here is mind-boggling, perhaps to the point of confusion, but nevertheless I warmly regard this as a superb piece of work. Mr Hudson is like a live wire, leaping between genres at the drop of a Trilby. ‘There Will Be Tears’ is perhaps the track that encapsulates the artist’s vision for this album: ‘Big. Not too much going on. Just a big sound. A big chorus.’ Couldn’t have put it better myself. ‘Instant Messenger’ is one of the most original and enthralling tunes I’ve heard for a long time, even though the subject matter appears a tad flimsy on the first listen.
The music on this album has a quality that I really can’t quite put my finger on. Like I said, the variety it has to offer is little short of mind-boggling. Yet, its component parts are so simple. It’s perhaps better to think of the album as diverse rather than the individual tracks that make it up as complicated. Each tune has a unique quality to it. No two are the same. This is an album you can listen to and enjoy over and over again and be surprised by new features every time. Just superb listening.
Hats off to you sir. And cheers for the Coke.
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