Hideous Bastard

Oliver Sim

explicit

Pubblicato il 09/09/22 su Young
Artisti principali: Oliver Sim
Genere: Musica alternativa e indie

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The solo debut from xx frontman Oliver Sim (produced by bandmate Jamie xx) feels important, even life-saving, straight from the opener "Hideous." His voice on the verses is so deep and looming it threatens to loosen something at your core. "I'm ugly … I'm bloody/ But I don't feel as though I've been unlucky/ I have people in my life who really love me," he sings. "Caught my reflection in your eyes/ Now you've seen me from both sides/ Am I hideous?" The subterranean music shifts as he belts out "oh-ohhhhhhh"—flying even as horror-show strings tug at its coattails. Suddenly, the breathtaking falsetto of Jimmy Somerville swoops in like a guardian angel: "Follow my voice/ Sweet natured boy/ Just to keep you safe" And then Sim's bared revelation: "Been living with HIV/ Since 17/ Am I hideous?" It's the first time he's publicly talked about his diagnosis. "This record isn't about HIV," he said not long before the record's release. "I'm not naive, I know it's going to be talked about and it will be a defining part of it, but that's not how I see this record. It's about shame, it's about fear and it's celebratory." Indeed, it's a musical study in light and shade. "Unreliable Narrator" bears multi-layered vocals and a Depeche Mode-like drone. "Sensitive Child" is spare yet goth-industrial, the line "you're not the person that I knoooooooooow" dragged out until it's freezing. Likewise, Sim sings the title of "Confident Man" over and over again until a wraith-like voice and slithering beat chases after him out of the spotlight. But there is also "GMT," sampling Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks' "Smile Backing Vocals Montage" and about, Sim has said, "pining over a love back home, thousands of miles apart on different time zones. It's also a love letter to London." When Wilson's soothing high tenor "harmonizes" with him, it's heavenly. Wilson and Parks also get credit on album ender "Run the Credits"—which lightly percolates and uplifts even as the lyrics feel doomed. "Disney princes, my God, I hate them/ I'm Buffalo Bill/ I'm Patrick Bateman," Sim sings, reminding repeatedly that "Romeo dies in the final scene." On "Saccharine," which feels like both a hymn and a James Blake outtake, Sim marvels at being charmed by lightness: "I never had a taste for the saccharine/ It's a miracle you got in." The incredible "Fruit" is perhaps the most xx-like, bouncing on elastic bass and, again, Somerville's chilling falsetto as heartache is wrung from every ethereal note. The romantic longing and indecision feels oddly joyous, in the way of Sleater-Kinney's "One More Hour." "Do I take a bite, take a bite of the fruit?/ I've heard other people say/ It can't be right if it causes you shame," Sim sings. "Wrong or right/ You're standing right in front of the green light/ Just look at his face, what a beautiful face/ How it makes you feel inside … Take a bite, babe, it's an ordinary thing." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

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Hideous Bastard

Oliver Sim

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