New Song On Sunday

 

Some artists are inspired by their environment, others by literature. British singer-songwriter Hayden Thorpe, a former member of the pop-art band Wild Beasts, has been influenced by both. 

„He nears Ness. He moves through the marshes much as mud might. You couldn’t call it walking; this march matches no known gait. He pours himself forwards; pours, sets, melts and pours again, in a looping flow, learnt part from otter and part from water.“

These are the first lines you hear in He, read and looped by the author Macfarlane himself. The ‘Ness’ described in the book is actually called Orford Ness and is located on the east coast of Great Britain, a piece of land where the British Ministry of Defence used to carry out ‘top secret’ tests, including nuclear weapons. The restricted military area was converted into a nature reserve in the 20th century, and the pebble beaches in ‘Ness’ are among the longest in Europe. 

Far removed from classic songwriting, Thorpe has dispensed with the usual instrumentation and placed his falsetto vocals in the foreground, sparingly adding cello and clarinet. Not a song for eternity, but an exceptionally calm and beautiful one in a far too hectic time.