Liverpool Sound and Vision 8.5/10
Art should never be frozen, stuck in a place in which dust crawls and multiplies over the icy cage in which the artist’s endeavour is placed by the well-meaning and the loved-up into a place of no change, of never being able to grow, to adapt, to find another level in which hopefully the art in question will come to mean something different, something more.
Too often we decry and complain that change is a malevolent force, that we would rather adhere to the tried and tested in which to sing along with and woe-betide anyone that tries to shift that opinion into a more flexible arena. We do this because we are comfortable in what we know, we don’t want variation, or transformation to place in to an area in which we call out Hey Mister, don’t change what we love.
Change though is inevitable, change in the right hands can lead to a deeper understanding, a more approachable love, and it is one held up as a stunning example by Alan Triggs and his song Hey Mister.
In a world that has become obsessed with stripping back and only observing the bare bones, it is with increased cool and excitement to witness and hear an artist willing to change the direction and adding a full band effect to a song that was already simmering with genuine pleasure.
The persuasion of depth is one that comes with appreciation for a fuller form, we seem susceptible to the shallow, to the single text message, never wanting to take the plunge and allowing ourselves to be heard in a phone call, somehow, we have allowed this to happen, for whatever reason we have become wary of the large gesture and see it as a threat to the commodity of a single headline. Hey Mister navigates that approach with a preciousness of life, the willingness to change but make the experience bigger, dare it be said, more enlightening, one that is valued for the effort that is installed.
A marvellously captured update of a favourite song, Hey Mister, Alan Triggs cannot be faulted.
Alan Triggs releases Hey Mister on November 23rd.
Ian D. Hall