The Birthday Letters and the urgent grace and nostalgia of "Living Like A Mystic"

 

"You’re love’s microphone / When I’m called to the stage to speak on my own / You can describe the stars / When a poet can only employ metaphors..."

The alternative folk / pop sound of  London based The Birthday Letters, the musical incarnation of singer-songwriter Joseph Hughes, blends entrancing lyrical content with musical surprises. Take his latest "Living Like A Mystic" that casts enough sonic imagery to inspire a novel (even the title sounds like the name of a book), that moves sideways. There is an indie rock, even sort of proggy nature and a melancholy nostalgia. In the way that Billy Corgan, on the best and lighter Smashing Pumpkins creations, would create a frayed gentle mayhem that would reflect youthful times, Hughes similarly creates urgent tensions, a breathlessness angst and heaps a sort of faint late 70's psychedelia all over it. 

Love this sound, love the almost math rockian guitar shapes and Hughes deep emotional context that straddles thoughts of creation, of death and everything in between. Yes, I fucking love this.  

-Robb Donker Curtius

The Birthday Letters · Living Like A Mystic

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/thebirthdayletters/

https://soundcloud.com/the-birthday-letters/sets/human-beauty

https://thebirthdayletters1.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/thebdaylettersmusic/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5OpOk0SMMemnIxbBStmZq5

The Birthday Letters is the music of Joseph Hughes, a singer and songwriter originally from Shropshire based in London. Once described by Stereogum as having a ‘soft spoken theatricality to his delivery’, he has never lived it down since.

‘The debut record from England’s The Birthday Letters absolutely astonished me. A fantastic expression of inventive production decisions, honest songwriting and gorgeous soundscapes. Human Beauty was every bit one of my favourite underground albums of 2020 - and deserves your attention’.

- Slow Motion Panic Masters

‘Hughes' vocal aesthetic reminds me a bit of a blending of Death Cab's Ben Gibbard and Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan which is meant as a supreme compliment. Awww, nice to have musical gems like this to marvel in.’

- American Pancake

‘Simple indie rock perfection’

- The Darkside Reviews

‘Built to soundtrack contemplative early-aughts indie films, or to make your own life feel like one’

- Stereogum

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