UK-born, Berlin-based singer/ songwriter DAVID HULL has quietly been piecing together a fascinating catalogue for the best part of two decades now. He last caught our eye with the elegant, yet slightly edgy ‘Who Really Knows’ (2008) made with NYC multi-instrumentalist Tom Curiano (Nell Bryden, James Marks), but his work also includes more experimental albums like 1998’s ‘Kitchen Recs’ and the delightfully-named 1996 outing ‘Normal & Weird Songs.'
Recently, David has begun working in a duo format with Nottingham singer/ songwriter Mick O’Reilly, but his end of year address, ‘Times Like These’ isn’t a new album as such, it’s a collection of unreleased songs from the vault stretching from the mid-90s to the recent past.
Hull matter-of-factly describes the 17 tracks as “songs (that) somehow never fitted on an album, or are alternative takes of songs that have already been released” which is indeed true on face value. However, while many such ad hoc collections drawn from a variety of sources can quite easily sound rough and irritatingly unfinished, in this case the Lo-Fi going on Mid-Fi feel of these tracks seems the perfect vehicle for David’s intimate and compelling songs.
A few of the tracks were recorded at the sessions for either ‘Normal & Weird Songs’ or ‘Kitchen Recs’ and feature respected Berlin instrumentalists like Snorre Schwartz, Wilf Moss and Markus Fister in tow. On ‘Stay’, David’s note-to-self ruminations (“need to move my ass again and hang on to you”) morph gloriously into a stirring, Gospel-tinged chorus, while ‘Destination’ has an otherworldly, Julian Cope-ish feel with pattering drums and droning organ before indulging in some almost funky breakdowns. Quixotic, but cool, as is the mournful dirge ‘Pay’ where Hull jars you with a sudden (but judicial) use of the ‘F’ word in the lyric.
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Elsewhere, David is left primarily on his own on a series of great lonely late-nighters like ‘Boxing The Air’, ‘Blow’ and 2007’s ‘Make Me Happy’ where he calls upon prowling bass, cheap drum machine and vibrato guitars to make his point. Songs like these showcase the slightly vulnerable, but erudite slant to Hull’s singing (which still reminds me very favourably of Peter Perrett or early David Bowie) and it just sounds better and better the more you open yourself up to him.
The most challenging track is probably ‘Complicated Woman’. Opening with beats reminiscent of Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’, it then throws in its’ lot with a low-watt post-Grunge assault, but there’s something quite mesmerising about the way it seems to revel in its’ own sleaze. At a separate tangent, the album winds down with the lovely echo-y guitars and balmy synths of the title track, which brings the album to a heart-meltingly warm conclusion and leaves you wanting much, much more.
‘Times Like These’, then, is something of a triumph. Quirky and singular, yet gripping and remarkably cohesive for a collection transcending time and place, it adds up to an essential addition to this under-rated figure’s canon. It’s one to really cherish while the snow forces you to hole up.
David John Hull on Myspace
Kitchen Recs on Myspace
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