We started the week with a taste of my current fixation, Elbow, including a luscious duet from Guy Garvey and Richard Hawley, so let’s end it with some Hawley solo work.
Richard Hawley’s work is like something you’d hear as the soundtrack to a slightly garbled, scratched and dusty black-and-white film found at the back of an old drawer. I first heard Hawley when “The Ocean” was slipped into a mix sent to me.
I didn’t know what to make of it the first time I heard it. It sounded like an old lounge singer was trying to make another go at a career by using a new producer with shiny new gadgets, yet still using all the old musical tricks. You might construe from that description that I didn’t like it, but the song eased its way further and further under my skin until hearing it late at night while driving down city streets felt like serenity.
So, lean back, have an entirely too sweet cocktail, imagine waves lapping against a Mediterranean beach while a couple who look curiously like Astrud Gilberto and Marcello Mastroianni walk along the sandy shore, and enjoy a little more Richard Hawley.
“Coles Corner”
“Born Under a Bad Sign”
“Serious”
