As a songwriter, especially one going through a fallow period, you can tell immediately when someone else has just *got it*. The muse, the knack, the moment - whatever you want to call it. You don't get jealous or anything - you just listen and marvel. This year it's King Creosote. He's been producing material from his base in Fife for years now, but I don't know his back catalogue at all. The songs on his new album Bombshell are irresistably good, all of them. The lyrics are often from the heart and always to the point. They are original, often yearningly romantic, occasionally witty and with (refreshingly, in the days of Radiohead) no pretentiousness at all. The melodicism is effortless, so there's no need to surround it with sound effects. His voice, while often sailing off into falsetto, doesn't grate and is surprisingly rich. I like his musical principles too: "King Creosote maintains that the song is more important than the style, and that the performance outweighs recording quality. If a part can’t be recorded in one take, scrap it for something simpler." I reckon it might be the best album of 2007.
Some lyrics I liked from the last track:
"And your words chased round and round in my head last night
they chased their own tails
and your words jigged round my mind all night
to look at me now I'm quiet as sand
and the tide shrinks back into its womb
and I hope the empty shells and bones of your stories
will litter and clutter the shore
and I hope that when I find them
I'll remember how they danced
and the racket they made
when they were alive"
(c) King Creosote, 2007
King Creosote site
KC on Guardian Weekly podcast
