The Act: HAMISH HAWK

The Track: 'NANCY DEAREST'

The Format: DIGISINGLE

The Release Date: JUNE 15TH 2024

The Digital Link: orcd.co/nancy_dearest

The Truth: Edinburgh troubadour Hamish Hawk returned in April with the welcome news that a new album 'A Firmer Hand' is to land August 16th on fierce panda across North America and So Recordings for the Rest of the World.

Fresh from a solo tour across Europe in support of Villagers, and following the playful first single 'Big Cat Tattoos', Hamish shares a further album highlight in the fragrant form of the grandiose, anthemic 'Nancy Dearest'. Rich of voice and even richer of imagination, Hawk creates musical pen-portraits, chamber pop songs that have swallowed both a dictionary and a compendium of modern urban (and island) fairy tales. And Hawk does all this with considerable wit, inspired by artists like Leonard Cohen, Jarvis Cocker, Randy Newman and Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields. Or, in his own words...

"Many of the songs on 'A Firmer Hand' are marked by the presence of another: a lover, an authority figure, an enemy, or a confidante. 'Nancy Dearest' is defined instead by an absence. On the one hand, it’s a bitterly defiant song, an ego trip, a narcissistic flight of fancy. On the other, it’s a song about sheer loneliness, isolation, and ultimate loss.

"Either way, it’s a cry for help. We all tell ourselves stories about who we are and who we are not. On occasion something will cause our visions of ourselves to short-circuit. In Nancy Dearest, our hero is spiralling. “I’ve seen the well of emptiness and I have had my fill.” Tell me about it, stud."

Hawk's new album follows 2021's breakthrough LP 'Heavy Elevator' and 2023's critically-acclaimed 'Angel Numbers', both sublime and literate records that saw significant plaudits at both press and radio, including - no mean feat for an artist previously self-releasing in the current climate - six singles playlisted at BBC 6 Music. 'Big Cat Tattoos' made that seven.

Of 'A Firmer Hand', Hamish says: “Writing this album, I opened up my closet, and a skeleton came out. The thing that links all of the songs is a sense of the unsaid, whether out of guilt, shame, repression, embarrassment, coyness, whatever it might have been. I realised: I am going to say these things, and not all of them are going to make me look good. The album made so many demands, and I just gave myself over to it.

"Once I'd given myself over to the idea, I thought, I have to stick to this. I can’t hide anything from it. I can’t clean it all up for consumption. It felt uncomfortable for me – and that’s exactly how it should feel. That’s a really strong position. I thought, this is the body of the record. The fact that it makes me nervous tells me it was the right thing to do.”

It takes only a couple of listens to be sure that it was a risk worth taking. And just a couple more to determine that 'A Firmer Hand' is the best and boldest record Hamish Hawk has delivered to date. “It’s a bit of a coming of age record,” he says. And a record for the ages.

Hamish Hawk will be playing a number of dates across the year in support of the new record including a recently announced support for Elbow in the summer. He will also be playing an extensive set of instore and outstore performances in the run-up to release - catch Hamish live on the following dates:

July
21 READING Englefield Estate (w/ Elbow & Villagers)
27 INVERNESS Belladrum Festival

August
4 BARNSLEY Underneath The Stars Festival
13 KINGSTON Pryzym @ Banquet
14 LEEDS The Wardrobe @ Crash
15 MANCHESTER Night & Day @ Piccadilly Records
16 BRISTOL Rough Trade
17 LONDON Rough Trade East
18 NOTTINGHAM Rough Trade
19 LIVERPOOL Rough Trade
20 OXFORD Jericho Tavern @ Truck
21 SOUTHAMPTON Vinilo Record Store (Afternoon)
21 PORTSMOUTH The Brewery @ Pie & Vinyl (Evening)
22 BRIGHTON Resident
23 KETTERING Green Belt Festival
24 BIRKENHEAD Future Now Weekender
30 ABERDEEN Assai at Tunnels (outstore)
31 EDINBURGH Assai at Liquid Rooms (outstore)

September
1 GLASGOW Assai at St Lukes (outstore)

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