Nick Hudson – K69996ROMA:EP

By RingMaster Review on September 20, 2021 • ( 0 )

Though we have come to the creative world of Nick Hudson relatively recently we have been swiftly absorbed in and fascinated by it. It is a perpetual source of certain unpredictability, rich imagination and thick suggestion and yes a few times uncertainty and unsurprisingly his new K69996ROMA:EP again embraces all aspects.

The front man of art-rock band The Academy Of Sun, Brighton-based Hudson has persistently matched the acclaim given his band with the plaudits forwarded his solo work which has also ventured into painting, film, and a recently-completed novel. Already this year has seen the Come Back When There’s Nothing Left EP and his album Font Of Human Fractures spark attention and high praise; each provoking our thoughts and imagination to new ideas. The K69996ROMA:EP carries on in the same vein but quickly casts its own individual evocation of emotions and perception.

The EP actually opens with a track first found upon Font Of Human Fractures, Hudson’s first album in five years. The Ballad Of K69996 Roma “transposes a conscience upon the slick Alfa Romeo car that was owned by and weaponised in the 1975 murder of queer Marxist filmmaker, poet and essayist Pier Paolo Pasolini.” It is a track in movements with a continuous melodic intimation and poignancy, each a striking twist in the landscape of the drama and contemplation cast. Hudson’s voice and piano weave the first part of intimation, both a magnetic pull brewing greater captivation and thought by the second. With the strings of Lizzy Carey a thick melancholic weave into the track’s evolving concerto and the subsequent vocals of Juliet Russell as the voice of Anna Magnani further expanding the atmospheric intimation, the track simply enthralled and has hooked thought and attention with continuing strength by the listen.

The following We Darken Horses surrounds Hudson’s prose with a crystaline shimmer within which electronic animation flits across the senses before rising into the subsequent off-kilter sunspot that follows. The superb track is an aberrant pop song of sorts but one heard through a kaleidoscope of light and aspects which draws the imagination into a concurring world of divergent reality.

An equally disparate realm seems to be the source of You Eat With Your Eyes, one where nightmares and dreams align with celebration and chaos. It is a spread of melodic intimation and sonic transgression sharing enticing light and corrosion carrying dark while If I Get Killed It’s 100% The Fault Of Alain Delon And His Godfather Francois Marcantoni evolves through a prism of intrigue to have ears glued and the imagination uncertain but enjoying a weave of possibilities.

That is the additional fun of Nick Hudson compositions, we know our thoughts are more than likely way off the actual heart and theme of a piece and song yet each relishes providing the listener with a canvas to mentally and emotionally paint, though next up Amber And The Ambergrines is less a mystery being a compelling version of Robert Wyatt’s gem. With Hudson crazing its edges and enriching its rapture, the song is a sunset within the album, a moment to relax with before A Congregation Of One set the imagination down in its provocative isolation. It is a piece which felt like a sort of limbo, one offering a warm and energetic spirit yet within a dystopian climate of solitude and claustrophobia.

The incitement of thought and intrigue never wavers as the album closes up with first Asymmetric: A Forgery, a heartfelt ballad that was originally composed and recorded for his recent album but omitted due to running time restrictions on the vinyl edition. Piano and vocals again simply held court before the song opened up its box of unorthodox enterprise and heart shared melancholy while The Florist, a song co-written with Kianna Blue (The Academy of Sun) who also provides keys and synth to the release, wraps the senses and thoughts in mystical suggestiveness and atmospheric almost celestial possibilities.

Once again Nick Hudson had us absorbed in his imagination and especial realisation of that invention, the K69996ROMA:EP our favourite immersion with him yet.

K69996ROMA:EP is out now and available @ https://nickhudsonindustries.bandcamp.com/album/k69996roma-ep