When you’re having one of those days – your brain feels like a layer’s been peeled off, your shoulders are knotted tight and the glands at the front of your face are quivering with the weight of stillborn tears – sometimes all you need is a record to remind you that actually, despite recent trends, not everything in the world is total shit.
Eugene McGuinness did that for me today. The Early Learnings Of, the debut release from the 21-year-old London-born, Irish-bred, Liverpool-dwelling singer-songwriter, is instantly one of the most loveable, intelligently creative and exciting records I’ve heard so far this year.
It’s pop music, and has the potential to be popular – but it’s not conventional, or at all contrived. McGuinness effortlessly marries light-headed hazes of vocal harmony with lush, crackly guitars, random (I suspect) home-made noises, gently moving pianos and sharp lyrical witticisms.
‘Monsters Under The Bed’ infiltrates every corner of your head with its infectious melody; ‘Madeleine’ soothes and lulls gently. Meanwhile ‘Child Lost In Tesco’ has an irrepressible upbeat groove with delirious “Woo-ooos”, and contains the genius line: “I’m like a child lost in Tesco/I’m walking down the middle of the aisle/What I’m looking for I don’t know/Just want my name to be passed around for a while”.
He won’t be wanting much longer. Domino have their eyes on the prize with this one. Expect big things.