With his new album 'Songs From The North', dMh makes decades of music from very different bands into a vivid, cohesive experience, with each cover tinged with his personal songwriting flair. Keeping the core elements the same, the bass from The Beatles' 'Come Together', the arpeggios from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's 'Messages' and the initial growing noise of 'What Difference Does It Make' by The Smiths, it's in his other choices dMh really catches your ears, almost diving further into the iconic elements, adapting their effects, their tonality or the entire instrument they're played on. Vocals performed with passion is the final icing on the cake for a project that truly honours music royalty.
“The idea for this album came whilst tinkering with a version of She's Lost Control by the famously northern Joy Division,” the artist adds, “having previously released a couple of singles which were covers of songs from other bands with connections to the northern reaches of the UK (Jethro Tull, Blackpool, and The Fall, Manchester), plus having recorded many years earlier an unreleased version of Come Together by four scousers, I realised I was possibly subconsciously working my way to an album's worth of covers by northern bands, and so being a northerner myself (Preston) decided it would be fun to actually complete the task and find a bunch more northern songs to be subjected to varying degrees of mutilation.
There's an unintentional bias towards North West England in the final selection with only Bill Nelson and The Human League from the other side of the Pennines, Scotland being solely represented by The Blue Nile (unless you allow for the fact that Tull's frontman and main songwriter Ian Anderson was born in Dunfermline) and nothing from Durham/Northumberland alas. If there's ever a SFTN vol. 2 however, this will be rectified, plus the inclusion of that She's Lost Control cover if I finally get it finished and sounding something like it does in my head!”
Showcasing an eclectic creativity across a discography and intermittent releases that have seen contemporary classical piano, spoken word integration and music seen on Radio 6 Music and Radio 2 be released into the world, dMh’s excursions from a career as a voice actor and audiobook narrator see him consistently pick up support.
Comments