This British Neo-Soul duo will keep you warm on a cold night! It’s time for a new post!

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Good Morning! My name is Jacob Braybrooke and I’m here to write about your daily track on the blog, because it’s my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! Honne (which translates to “true feelings” in Japanese) are a British Electronic Neo-Soul duo formed in Bow, London in 2014 by Andy Clutterback (Vocals/Producer/Writer) and James Hutcher (Guitar/Keyboard/Synths). I’ve been following the duo since their early days in mid-2015, with a string of EP releases leading to their debut LP “Warm On A Cold Night” in 2016, with “Love Me/Love Me Not” releasing as their sophomore LP effort in 2018. The music has been entirely produced, written and recorded by the duo themselves, and released by the Tatemae Recordings label. The two specialise in producing Soul which has a very warm and stripped-back sound, with cold vocals and minimalist synth work, described by Alice Vincent of The Telegraph as “futuristic soul destined to re-invent baby-making music” in their inception. Last Friday, they dropped a new single “No Song Without You”, which the duo wrote on a spontaneous trip to Los Angeles back in January with Anderson. Paak co-producer Pomo, and they finished it off later in their studio in Hackney in self-isolation. Watch the gorgeous video for “No Song Without You” below.

Saying on this track: “It’s ok for things to sound a bit rough,” the duo explain, “rather than going into the studio and compressing guitars over and over. The more character that you leave in it, the more the listener can dive in.”, HONNE stick to their guns with a new track that will please existing fans of their music, although it perhaps does quite little in the sense of reinvention. The pair have been experimenting with new sounds, and it’s fairly clear in “No Song Without You” that Andy and James have been taking a bit more influence from the Synth-wave genre. Paired over light acoustic guitar melodies and silky keyboard riffs, Andy croons: “I felt nothing without you/There’d be no song without you” and “When I’m down and out/And feel like there is nothing left for me/You save me” before a Space-Pop-like synth riff causes a Dream-Pop effect to roll across the ’60s Cali-pop melodies given room to breathe by the loosely-structured formula. Lyrical themes of love and friendship spring up: “When I got into a fight/And you stood right up for me/You save me”, while the vocal content may possibly also be referring to a deeper, more religious and spiritual meaning. The songwriting is aided by the crisp production that typically defines HONNE’s work, although the overall sound doesn’t do anything drastically different to what we’ve heard from them before. I think that Holly Warburton, the illustrator, has done an amazing job with the light-hearted music video that feels like a short Studio Ghibli film, and the minimalist synthesizer work represents a rather ambient sound reminiscent of Chill-wave acts like Washed Out and In Love With A Ghost. If a new full album is on the cards for the next few months, I’m really looking forward to hearing it.

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You can also look back at the early sounds of HONNE with my in-depth review for their fan-favourite classic “Warm On A Cold Night”, the titular track of their debut album. See to that here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/12/17/todays-track-honne-warm-on-a-cold-night/

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Thank you for reading this post! As always, in regards to #BlackLivesMatter, we endorse the peaceful protests on One Track At A Time. Please go and check your local area for good charity causes that help those directly affected by racism and injustice. I’ll be back tomorrow for an in-depth look at more new music – this time from a young male solo artist who is only 25, but he’s already won two Grammy Awards! For his new single, he’s worked with BRIT’s Critics Choice award nominee Mahalia! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/