Music Reviews
Artist:
FinkTitle:
This is the thingLabel:
Ninja Tunes
‘As featured in the Mastercard Road Trip Adverts’. It’s not a statement that fills you with warmth for the new single, even allowing for the fact that Fink’s debut album ‘Biscuits for Breakfast’ was a John Martyn and Nick Cave soulfully- influenced ode to modern living. There is something about this being combined the aforementioned product that takes the innocence out of the whole thing, and reminds us that the music industry has fallen over itself recently to tap into the popularity of singer/ songwriters to ease the troubled minds of young professionals, busy working out if interest rate rises area good thing of a bad thing for them. (A good thing for Mastercard most certainly.)
However, Ninja tunes have not carved the niche that they have, and become synonymous with pushing relevant and varied artists over the past 15 years, by merely looking for a money-spinner. Fink is, to be fair, an astute, talented artist with a genuine ability to allow a few lines and a sparse melody to carry a rich, yet fragile, musical idea. Much as his lyrics point to a relationship falling apart, the clipped thin beats of ‘Make it Good’ barely hold it together. The title track itself is beatless.
The contrast of musical lightness with lyrical heaviness is possibly where past comparisons with Massive Attack have been drawn, however, whereas the latter regularly employed their dancehall roots, Fink is far closer to his folk influences and floats just as readily into the corners of your soul.
