Searching for new music is a daily quest of mine. And if I look at the fruits of my labours so far this year, David Thomas Broughton stands out as a real find. Within a few moments of listening to one of his songs, it becomes clear that the man is absolutely brilliant.
Soulful, atmospheric, comforting, insightful…you could heap praise upon him all day and still not quite capture that certain “sage” quality to Broughton’s music and why it’s so instantly arresting.
“The Complete Guide to Insufficiency” is a lo-fi masterpiece. Recorded one afternoon alone in a church, each track is done in one take – blemishes and all – and represents a gorgeous expression of artistic purity.
Using a structuralist approach, Broughton builds from scratch, looping himself until it sounds like he’s created his very own choir of clones to back him in a pursuit of celestial songwriting (as on the angelic ‘Ever Rotating Sky’). That his lyrics weigh in with equal measures of wit and wisom (“It’s easy to forget where you came from, if there’s no question of your return” on ‘Ambiguity’), only further his cause.
Comparisons with the voice of John Cale and Antony will likely prove to be recurring stigma for Broughton, but, as one will find when exploring his surprisingly diverse back catalogue, such resemblances deserve to be completely disregarded. David Thomas Broughton is one to watch out for, make no mistake about it.
