The singer-songwriter template may seem as if it was set in stone a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean that the astute artist can’t find new ways of charming the pants off us via that style and sound. Tom Hancock’s debut album, Innate Subjects does exactly that.
Leaning into, at one extreme, the delicacy of Nick Drake, at the other a more contemporary indie-folk vibe à la Sufjan Stevens, this is the sound of the more intimate edge of the singer-songwriter moving with the times, and beyond.
If opener, “Skin on Skin” is gorgeously understated, a finessed and finger-picked sound graced by the careful arrangement of additional sonics, it is songs such as “Nothing,” a duet with ethereal electro-popster Shakkalo, that push the envelope into more delicately deft and digitally driven realms. Ironically, the song’s gentle understatement speaks volumes, reminding us that whilst Hancock is happy to tip his hat to the past, it is the future that he has his eyes set on.
“Sycamore” is a banjo-grooved elegy for the now felled tree at Sycamore Gap whilst using that event as a metaphor for a relationship coming apart at the seams, “I Could Have Run” is a cool slice of dreamscape folk meets ambient artistry, and “Does It Matter What I Am” ends with a gorgeous electro-roots blend.
If you want to know where the cutting edge of indie-infused folk music, or perhaps the progressively folky edge of indie music, lies today, then Innate Subjects is a better place than most to start exploring.
