After yesterday’s minor diversions, I’m back on track with more of the usually kind of Daily Growl stuff (breathe more easily, Mr. Toad). Like singer-songwriters. I’m not going to buy into the journalistic cliché which says that there are too many singer-songwriters around today. There may be a lot, but like all kinds of music, some will be good and I’ll listen to them and write about them, and some will be bad and I’ll ignore them. Kid Harpoon is definitely in the former category, so here goes.
Kid Harpoon is the alter ego of Tom Hull from Medway in Kent, surely one of the grimmest parts of South East England. These days though, he’s to be found in Holloway, North London where he’s been plying his trade for a couple of years, sometimes solo, other times with his backing band The Powers That Be. This week sees first widely-available release, The First EP (the actual first single was a limited edition 2-tracker) which sees him properly signed to Young Turks/XL Records.
It’s a pretty good introduction to the talents of the Kid, over six tracks, which see him very much in the folk-pop mould of many of his young London compatriots. So far, so uninteresting you may say, but the appeal of Hull’s music isn’t in innovation, it’s just simple good old-fashioned quality songwriting. Lead track Milkmaid is the standout, with its quirky lyrics telling the story of a milkmaid who wants to be an actress (it’s the sort of thing you can imagine Colin Meloy singing about), backed up by steady rolling drumbeat. The rest of the tracks continue in a similar vein, and work a particular charm, which even if they don’t quicken the pulses too much, will certainly have you lifting the needle back to the start to play though again.
Download: Kid Harpoon – Milkmaid
Buy The First EP from Rough Trade or download from emusic.
Kid Harpoon is the alter ego of Tom Hull from Medway in Kent, surely one of the grimmest parts of South East England. These days though, he’s to be found in Holloway, North London where he’s been plying his trade for a couple of years, sometimes solo, other times with his backing band The Powers That Be. This week sees first widely-available release, The First EP (the actual first single was a limited edition 2-tracker) which sees him properly signed to Young Turks/XL Records.
It’s a pretty good introduction to the talents of the Kid, over six tracks, which see him very much in the folk-pop mould of many of his young London compatriots. So far, so uninteresting you may say, but the appeal of Hull’s music isn’t in innovation, it’s just simple good old-fashioned quality songwriting. Lead track Milkmaid is the standout, with its quirky lyrics telling the story of a milkmaid who wants to be an actress (it’s the sort of thing you can imagine Colin Meloy singing about), backed up by steady rolling drumbeat. The rest of the tracks continue in a similar vein, and work a particular charm, which even if they don’t quicken the pulses too much, will certainly have you lifting the needle back to the start to play though again.Download: Kid Harpoon – Milkmaid
Buy The First EP from Rough Trade or download from emusic.
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