Don’t run for the hills – these James Blake loving, t-shirt wearing semi-acoustic warblers are already there!
I think we can probably pin this one on James Blake. Before he came along, solemn young men looking to channel their post-adolescent turmoil either formed a sappy nu-folk band or made grime on their PlayStations. There wasn’t much crossover. But Blake offered something new: he was into Digital Mystikz and Joni Mitchell, combining both influences to forge a much-copied template for the 2010s singer-songwriter. These days, sensitive lads across the land have abandoned their cardies and acoustic guitars for varsity jackets and libraries of soft synths. The age of the sad banger is well and truly upon us.
You can tell a lot from the choice of SoundCloud background for these things. Whereas three years ago it was all neon-lit drizzle at south London bus stops, the new visual shorthand for sad bangers is rocky crags and desolate tundra. Producers have begun to expunge any hint of urbanness from their backstories: Honne are from “Somerset and Wiltshire”; Astronomyy’s press release stresses that he’s from “rural” Worcestershire; Aquilo are from “the Lake District village of Silverdale”; while Sohn moved from London to Vienna, presumably to be nearer some mountains.
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by Sam Richards via Electronic music | The Guardian
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