Artists’ reactions to the growing darkness in the world are as diverse and personal as the artists themselves; the art they create in response to the rise of authoritarianism, political entrenchment, and division says as much about them as it does about the situation they are reacting to. Recorded Tbilisi, Georgia and the UK against a backdrop of ongoing protests in that country and a general rise of social disquiet around the world, you might expect Nick Hudson’s new album to rally fiercely against the injustices that he sees around him.
Instead, Nick takes an approach that speaks volumes about how he sees us tackling such problems and has written an album of songs celebrating love itself. And while there are songs found here that were clearly born in the midst of the political turmoil he finds himself surrounded by, it is to love that he turns, love in both the romantic, intimate sense and also in its broadest, uniting and empowering understanding.
There is no signature Nick Hudson sound; what connects these songs has more to do with expression and feeling, rather than anything as boring as genre or style, and that unwillingness to conform is what makes his music so unique and adventurous, so compelling and important. I won’t even say genre-hopping, as genres have nothing to do with anything found here.
And so we have songs such as “A Comet For Joshua,” a sweeping cascade of piano and strings that wanders the fringes of the neo-classical as he pours his heart out. We have songs such as “Nathan Heroin Christ,” a blend of searing sonics and late-night piano runs, chanted anthemics, and hazy, ambient noise, all of which eventually unite in a squalling musical storm.
We have pieces that are, perhaps surprisingly, not too far away from Billy Bragg territory. However, the singer-songwriter’s acoustic guitar template of “Everything That Fucked Me Up Before I Was Ten” is obscured through more delicate and textured production. And then there is “Daniel On The Eve Of Hope,” part one, an apocalyptic love song, part two, an urgent instrumental weaving beguiling sounds through a hypnotic landscape.
Across the entire album, a magical, otherworldly soundscape is created, as much by the choice of instruments used and their inherent sonics as by what is actually played on them. This is wonderfully modern music, forged from a diverse array of half-forgotten instruments – harpsichord, ondes martinot, Soviet analogue synths, Wurlitzer electric piano, the keyboard-triggered chimes of the carillon, and much more.
It is an album that reminds us that love is the answer, not the love of teenage idealism, the boy-meets-girl pop pap, or the naive rhyming of moon with June. Here, the message is that it is love that drives us to want a better world, love that compels us to challenge the subjugating forces looking to remake it in their own image, love for ourselves and others, that motivates us to fight against those seeking to restrict freedom and liberty.
On the Eve of Hope is nothing less than love as an act of rebellion, perhaps even as an act of war.
