Fyfe

Fyfe is the new musical project hailing from the now defunct but moderately successful (2010-2013), David Lyre, the genesis of both coming from Mr Paul Dixon (I promise you this is not a whodunit), a 25 year old Londoner who evidently has enough faith in his musical abilities to up and change names with abandon; And indeed he should because the first album by Fyfe, ‘Control’ issued by Believe Recordings’ is an excellent piece of work.

Firstly, it’s an “album”, in the sense of a conceived body of work. It is made with intent, with preconceived ideas for the sound, almost artistic in its layout such is the selection and attention paid to detail, track after track, like David Sylvian was wont to do with his solo work or with Ryuichi Sakamoto .

You really have to sit back and absorb it all, not just listen for the odd track to add on to our ever growing IPod playlists.

Musically it’s full of wonderful little hooks with interesting drum patterns and haunting but delicate synthesizer sounds all mixed up with Paul’s very clever melodic vocal hooks as Chris Martin very ably did early on in his career.

His voice in the lower regions has the swing of Jamie Cullum but its his ability for sweetness and range in the higher tones, like an English Rufus Wainwright, that will have you humming, maybe even trying to sing the tricky melodies. Lyrically it’s chockablock deep with dark and twisted turn of phrases as titles like ‘Solace’, ‘Conversation’, ’Veins’ and ‘Control’ would suggest.

Its so called nu-soul, chill-wave, electro music apparently. I just know that it’s a long play that you can stick on from start to finish and feel that you want to repeat the exercise such is it time well spent.

To my ears, its the best album I’ve heard in a long time and indeed I think we will all be hearing a lot about this Fyfe chap before the year’s end.