I love the pitch that comes with this latest album from Sean Hopkins. “Great music – take a listen.” Five words that seem so simple, but which really get to the art of both making music and listening to it. We live in an age where social media-driven marketing and PR tricks, studio gadgetry, celebrity guests, and inhuman enhancements seem far more important than writing something that ticks all the boxes for what music should be about and does so organically. In short, if the songs are good enough, people will find them.
Shadows & Light is the epitome of that idea: a collection of singer-songwriter pieces, built around acoustic guitar and voice, with just enough additional guitar tracking to keep things interesting and enough band input to give the songs a broader, more interesting shape and sense. And that is it. The sort of album that the likes of Richard Thompson or Bert Jansch made their name on. And if you might question why I’ve chosen two quintessentially English players as points of reference, it is because although Hopkins might call Pennsylvania home, his sound echoes the British folk revivalism of the sixties, only with more modern poise and polish. The best of both worlds.
The title track opens as a light, lovely, beat-driven slice of acoustic folk-pop, shot through with shimmering sonics and the timeless vibe of the wandering, contemporary troubadour. ‘Light Goes Out’ is more spacious and cinematic, owing something to the likes of Damien Rice’s haunting soundscapes and Justin Sullivan’s emotive, poetic lyricism.
‘November’s Here Again’ is a song so delicate, so ephemeral that at times you wonder if it has ceased to exist, at least until two-thirds of the way through when beats build, and groove grows; and by contrast, ‘Summertime’ is warm and lyrically potent, sun-strewn and chiming like light on the water.
The album rounds off as it came in, more buoyant and uplifted, ‘Touch the Moon’ offering a brilliantly dynamic, wandering between liquid understatement and raw electric guitar, lullaby-like loveliness and rock crescendo, perhaps a wander across the complete spectrum of Hopkins’ sonic spectrum.
Remember when music was authentic? Largely unadorned? Human? Remember when it was about the song, not the record label’s ability to make you think that buying the record will somehow make you cool or popular? (Buying this album will make you cool and popular, though only in the most discerning musical circles…which is the only place to be.) Remember music that was attractive because of its simplicity rather than despite it?
Sean Hopkins does.
It’s great music – take a listen. You’ll thank me.
