Ian Hawgood
Before I Let The Sunshine Rot
Phantom Channel

Multi-instrumentalist Ian Hawgood hails from England, but he's a traveller (he's located in both London and Tokyo) in both soul and body. And in music. Before I Let The Sunshine Rot, which was recorded in various locations (Seoul, Lecce, Paris, Pennsylvania, etc), is music for the inner mind.

Hawgood sure is an active and creative guy, running no less than three (!) labels: Home Normal, Nomadic Kids Republic and Tokyo Droning. He plays a variety of instruments, yes, he even makes his own instruments. He's also a painter and a photographer, and, as most bedroom-solo-artists of this genre, he's playing with electronics and reading comics. In addition to his musical escapades, Hawgood's got a day job teaching junior and high school boys, while considering his next move: "either nursing for elderly people or youth work whenever I decide I have had enough of teaching". Seems like he's just got the right 'soft' stuff for making the organic music he actually creates.

Ian Hawgood says about himself that he's "collecting sticks and stones and generally being a bit of a wide-eyed innocent". This wide-eyed innocence is quite a nice little touch to the album. Here are layers and veils of carefulness and gentleness. The stripped but quite blossomed melodies is indeed caressing and has got this relieving effect. As they're said to be captured memories from Haywood's journeys, they've got this touch of something private, something personal. Even something secret, not for us listeners to take part in. Yet, it seems Ian Hawgood really want us to sit in with him and his personal journeys, his personal journeys.

A fine mixture of abstract and concrete texture. Mind cleaning stuff.

Copyright © 2009 Håvard Oppøyen