With study in Ethnomusicology, you’d expect him to know all his stuff. New post time!

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke and, like typically, I’m writing up about your daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to get typing up about a different piece of music every day! I’ve always seen Nick Mulvey, an indie folk singer-songwriter and producer born in Cambridge, as somewhat of a little anomaly for Britain’s alternative music scene. After re-locating to Havana in Cuba to study music and art, he first made his mark upon his return to England as a founding member of a London-based Instrumental Percussion band, Portico Quartet, of which he used to play the Hang, which for those who don’t know, is a Pendulum-like Metal Plate instrument which is often considered to be a Steel-Pan ‘Drum’ part. His debut studio album, “First Mind”, which was released in 2014, received a nomination for the Mecury Prize award of that same year. Mulvey also studied Ethnomusicology at the University Of London’s School Of Oriental and African Studies, and so it becomes very clear that he has a fascination with the psychological and philosophical effects of World-based music, which is a rare occasion for an artist of a British, Northern Soul-driven background. The “Begin Again” EP is his latest music release, and this new 4-track project was released on July 10th via Fiction Records. Although his solo output has taken him in more of a Folk-led direction, he’s stated: “I’m always drawn to the same principles in music. Beneath each genre, at a certain level, they hold the same principles”. Let’s have a listen to the titular single of the new EP, “Begin Again”, below.

“Begin Again” is his first new release since 2019’s “In The Anthropocene”, a record that made history as the first track to be pressed on vinyl made from entirely recycled Plastic materials that were washed up on the UK’s shores. Mulvey says of the tracks, via a press release, “I see chaos, but I also see the opportunity for a new world, and a more beautiful one. We are living through an incredible shift. The old ways are dying, right before our very eyes. In a way, my songs are songs of the new ways coming through”, and a theme of nature and Earth is rather evident on the simplicity of the acoustic instrumentation and the emphasis on vocals which he portrays in the title track of his new EP, “Begin Again”. In the world we’re living in, where such a large amount of the music that we access is produced electronically, it can make for an engaging deviation from the tried-and-true formula of the now. Mulvey starts off: “Mary was my mother’s mother and my sister too/There’s a rain in the river, there’s a river running through” as he begins the story of Mulvey wanting to learn about his grandmother, who sadly died before he was born. The instrumentation here has a light groove, with shaking guitar strums and simmering percussion beats, with a gentle Hang melody thrown in for good measure, and to call back to his past. The lyrics also play on the topics of acceptance: “Can we begin again? It’s me again, I know you are so different to me/But, I love you, just the same” over the top of a plucky guitar melody that feels upbeat and easy on the ear. The rest of the vocals play on the Coastal and Nature themes of Mulvey’s previous releases, as he recites: “Sister by the side of the sea/Take the War out of me”, with a poetic twang to it. The vocals skew towards a bit of a Spoken Word delivery at points, with a quality that sounds emotive and well-educated at certain points. This makes the track feel rather sweet and down-to-earth. It reminds me of Ed Sheeran, but without most of the over-commercialism that has really downplayed his newer releases. Personally, I can’t really hear the World elements of his past work too clearly, but there are some blueprints of that education here, with the rhythmic guitar patterns and the lyrical devices that play on nature and environment feeling subtle, but well-paced. I would quite like to hear Mulvey get that big ol’ Hang instrument for a few more experimental tinkerings in the future, but there’s strength in the acoustic instrumentation and the emotive, confident lyrics in the track. This is a good way to bring the month to a close.

Thank you very much for reading my new post! Duty shall call for me again tomorrow, and we’re going to hit our stride in the new month by kicking off with the excellent new single from a much more established act, who create a wide variety of Electronic Dance and Ambient Chill-Out music, producing “At The River” which appears on vol. 1 of The Classic Chillout Album series. The group have released eight full-length studio albums, four of which have charted within the Top 50 of the UK Albums Chart. The duo achieved chart success, mostly in the 90’s, for the tracks “I See You Baby” and “Superstylin”, which still receive a decent level of radio airplay today! 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/