Oh boy, did I have some fun with this one. I hope the artist takes this in the right spirit. I was drawn to the DIY project Honeyvein, whose Dr Pangloss-like ambition is to “make the best music you can with what you have at this very point in time” by his PR which compares him to a host of artists including St Vincent, Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, David Bowie, Björk, and Kate Bush. Needless to say he sounds like none of them, not to me anyway, although the video does have shades of Bowie in it.
In fact, the character in the video, who I assume is Bastian Veland, aka Honeyvein, looks like a cross between Kenny Everett, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Ron Mael, and Edward Scissorhands. I don’t think he’ll object to that observation; he looks like a ‘fun’ character.
The first line sounds like “I was a vicar at the pawn (porn?) shop.” I’ll have to send it to Peter Kay, see what he makes of it.
Ok, fun time over; this isn’t a novelty record, in fact it’s quite good. If someone had told me it was arecently discovered early demo tape from Sparks I wouldn’t have challenged the suggestion.
Once it gets going it will quickly reel you in with a catchy beat and a nice little mix of synth sounds. I reckon he could have experimented a little more on the chorus perhaps changed key once or twice but heck it’s no big deal and since when was I a songwriter anyway?
Oh, and he’s done everything here himself - vocals, guitars, bass, percussion, synthesisers and drum programming, also the writing, recording, mixing, mastering, filming and editing. Nothing like a bit of the old North Korean ‘juche’ when times are hard.
I suspect that he’s a quirky, psychy and entertaining artist live and he’s got me intrigued already.
‘Dust’ is available now and is available on other streaming services from Friday 30th. Here is the video.
Find him on Facebook.