Leeds-based singer/songwriter elkyn has already caught our attention here at BPM with his single “if only it was alright now” released a year ago. Now the artist has returned with news of his debut album (holy spirit social club, out March 18 2022 via Curation Records) and a new single to build anticipation. “everything looks darker now” is a hushed and intimate taste of things to come. Talking of the track, elkyn (aka Joey Donnelly) says:
“This is about a rainy gig I played in Manchester. I invited someone and didn’t expect them to show up and when they did I shied away from them for most of it. We had a big catch up over a cigarette outside but when I left I realised how much I missed them.“
With gentle guitar strums disturbing what feels like dusty air, Donnelly himself sounds like he’s beginning mid-conversation, unsure how to comfortably start talking to whoever he hasn’t seen in so long. Intimacy is a quality many have captured on record before, but elkyn actively manages to get a sense of human discomfort into his music; his lyrics are sung in a inward hush, like he’s trying to turn away from view with each word. It’s no bad thing though: combined with his words that veer from nervousness (“In the background I stay / And i’m sorry I did but I did it anyway”) to ambiguity (“everything much harder now after what I did”), you get the sense of a real, complicated, and flawed human sat in front of the microphone.
Check out the monochrome video for “everything looks darker now” below or stream the single via your preferred streaming site.
holy spirit social club is out March 18 2022 via Curation Records. Stay up to date with elkyn via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
