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Jacob Faurholt

Corners

Written by: HES on 05/05/2014 20:33:36

Already by the first listen it's quite obvious that Jacob Faurholt's debut "Corners" is probably going to be a tad more honest than your regular singer/song writer guy: By the second line of the first song, he has already mentioned his nut sack and the hook of the chorus is a persistent "So I swallow my pills and hope it will get me through the night". Faurholt's voice is far from perfect. He is constantly riding the boundaries of on/off-pitch but does it better than any tongue-in-cheek high school-punker with an "I-can't-sing-but-I-am-going-to-do-it-anyway-so-fuck-off"-attitude. The only other example of this working I can think of with this weird ugly-pretty sound is that of Danish indie-band Figurines, where characteristic lead-singer Christian Hjelm also makes use of this quirky feature.

Faurholt is lyrically extremely honest and not always polished for political correctness. There is no doubt that Faurholt lives a tad outside our regular boundaries in crazy bohemian-Berlin, fuelling the weird fire underneath this production. Musically the soundscape is post-rock'ish but not falling into the pitfalls of the melancholy this genre often only has to offer. The "off" character of the whole thing is only supported by weird backing vocals in not-even-trying-falsettos and the music sometimes almost running too fast for the vocals. It's either bad mixing or what Faurholt actually want his music to sound like and I am leaning towards the latter. I may be a bit bored with the standard singer/songwriter as I have reviewed so many of them lately, but what Faurholt is doing - intentionally or not - is working for me because it's something different at least. At the same time I keep wondering if I am a part of the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes"; Is Jacob Faurholt wearing pants or not? I suppose I'm going for pants (wonderful pants, really), but something leaves me wondering if this guy is just taking the piss. I love it either way.

Download: Corners, Sing and Swim, A Horse's Head, Rock n Roll
For The Fans Of: Figurines, Peter Sommer, Treefight for Sunlight
Listen: facebook.com

Release Date 03.02.2014
Raw Onion Records