Upset The Rhythm presents…
RICHARD DAWSON
Tuesday 19 November
MOTH Club, Old Trades Hall, Valette St, Hackney Central, London, E9 6NU
7.30pm | £16 | https://link.dice.fm/jvDiSW5CyY (Tickets on sale tomorrow at 10am)
RICHARD DAWSON, the black-humoured bard of Newcastle, returns this October with the release of his sixth solo album 2020, his first since the critically acclaimed, Peasant. 2020 is an utterly contemporary state-of-the-nation study, that uncovers a tumultuous and bleak time. Here is an island country in a state of flux; a society on the edge of mental meltdown. This is England today. On 2020, Dawson introduces us to grand themes through small lives. His are portraits of human beings struggling with recognisable (and dare we say it, relatable) concerns, conflicts and desires, each reminding us that tragedy and gallows humour are not mutually exclusive, and that the magical can sit next to the mundane. Lyrically it is by far Dawson’s hardest-hitting and unflinchingly honest album to date. It is his poetic masterwork. Within, we find disgruntled civil servants dreaming of better days, anxiety-addled joggers listlessly searching Zoopla for houses they cannot afford in their spare time, amateur footballers who think they’re Lionel Messi and beleaguered pub landlords battling rising floodwaters.
Sonically, Dawson’s new-found fascination with pure pop music is also evident across 2020, manifesting itself in some of his most direct work to date. Melding his most melodic moments with flashes of choral dissonance, nerve-shredding crescendos, heartfelt laments and a deceptive finger-picking style. His voice is a pliable instrument throughout, moving between weathered back bar-room sage, angelic falsetto and strident, rabble-rousing hellion chief choir boy of the underworld. Dawson is a singular voice, part savant-genius, part court jester; a songwriter whose subjects and characters are often drawn from the local, the historical and the colloquial, yet have a timelessness to them, his music echoing with voices past, present and future. There is a continuity. Here is life, in all its strange and wonderful ways.
https://richarddawson.net/
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