Tuesday 30 June 2020

LISTEN: Novo Amor - 'Decimal / Halloween'

Rewind a couple of years to 2018, and I was just about to have the absolute joy of discovering Novo Amor, AKA Welsh artist Ali Lacey. Skip through what is probably a couple of hundred (at least) listens of his record Birthplace, a Union Chapel show and getting to look after Ali and the band at Bushstock last year where they played a stunning headline set... and I am very much still adoring the tunes. A treat, therefore, to have not one but two new tracks last week - a double single to make me ecstatic and to overwhelm me with all the sad feelings (... the perfect mix!) 

Both tunes, Decimal and Halloween, are gorgeous, unsurprisingly. I could say more, but in this instance, I very much want to let the music do the talking - and I'm writing this at midnight when I should definitely be asleep. Just know that Ali is without a doubt my favourite musical discovery of the last couple of years. Once you've listened to the new double single below, and cried a little, listen to Birthplace and figure out for yourself why I love it so much (and while you're there, you should most definitely check out Holding from Hailaker and Nano from David Grubb - projects from members of the Novo Amor family.) 


While Ali usually likes to leave the tracks up to fans' interpretation, I grabbed a quick quote from him about Halloween"it's a song I wrote on Halloween night of last year, the day that ended what was quite a bad month for me personally. I hadn't felt motivated to pick up my guitar in a little while and when I did I just felt like all the good things had left my mouth, I was out of things to say, which birthed the first line of the song." 

"The chorus calls back to Halloween of 2011, when I fell and hit my head on the sink and had to have it glued back up. The song was originally just five verses about how shit October was for me and it just got me thinking about that old Halloween and how I'm kind of feeling the same 9 years later. I usually don't like to have such obvious lyrics, but I like how the song lets people in to a more personal side of me, in a way. I feel like the line "I miss my friends that I pretend I don't need" sums me up completely." 

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