|
Admittedly, Amberley in New Zealand’s South Island is not the Mecca of today’s music scene. But in Henry Thomson the small town has sent an extraordinary Singer/Songwriter out into the wide world to put itself on the map.
If Thomson came from the US, his style would probably be described as Roots Music. He takes his cues from Folk and Blues, not neglecting native New Zealand influences. On his self-titled debut album he brings these roots together, making him naturally something which is usually acquired with expensive marketing campaigns: honest, and authentic.
Recorded in little more than a single day at David Fundter’s Bluetec Studios near Frankfurt Germany, the ten tracks are both minimalist and complex. Thomson shows the marks of such influences as Neil Young, Noel Gallagher and Bob Dylan without losing sight of his own voice; a voice that developed somewhere between a sheep farm in North Canterbury and smoky clubs in Kreuzberg, Berlin.
This debut collection of songs reflects the incessant wanderings of Henry, who left home at sixteen to spend a year in Europe. Some were written with a view of the Southern Alps from the farmhouse in North Canterbury, some in a damp flat in Wellington’s Aro Valley. Some came to be in the dark wintry streets of Berlin. Most are ‘about girls’ as a friend once simply, but accurately, pointed out, but most are also about life.
Artist Website
|
