154: Hudson Freeman - Dean

There's not a day goes by when an email doesn't drop into the GFP inbox offering an artist who, we're told, will appeal to fans of Sufjan Stevens. Hudson Freeman was one of those, but the other comparisons cast that link in a different kind of light: Pedro The Lion, Duster, MJ Lenderman...

'Dean', the first track from a forthcoming new album, is much further into the ballpark of those latter, scruffier names and it makes for an absorbing, pulse-racing introduction to his forthcoming Is A Folk Artist LP, which is released on May 29 via Mendel Records.

The plain-stated nature of the album title is deliberate. Freeman wants you to know that he's a folk artist even if the shapes he carves out of the well-worn genre come from a new, skewed place. His music is, we're told in the written accompaniment, "steeped in the contradictions of modern identity, digital disconnection, and faith." They could only really come out of the world we know now; post-lockdown, internet-drowned, forever-crumbling society. You can hear it in the heavy weight of his bones.

Sonically, 'Dean' is riveting. It starts in dead-of-night melodrama but that darkness soon shifts to more of a malaise, a kind of gloopy sense of alienation you can't escape from, as the whole thing swells and erupts – or perhaps collapses in on itself, a fiery pent-up simmering.

It all makes for something woozy yet fascinating, an unnerving character that, whether softly plucked or full of distortion, doesn't quite know where it wants to be, but demands you follow regardless. And you better believe we're following.

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