Daudi Matsiko – The King Of Misery

Folk

63%

 

When there’s something important to be said, there are two very different ways to ensure that your voice is heard: being loud, and being quiet. The former is pretty self explanatory; when someone shouts, you know there’s intent behind their words. They have something to say and are determined to let it ring out above all the background noise. As for the quiet part – that’s a little more complicated. Sometimes there’s a feeling so strong that it refuses to be expressed in words. Clinging in your throat and barely escaping as a whisper. With luck, there’ll be no need to worry about that whisper getting lost in the background noise. We’ve all been human long enough to know that feeling, to recognise when someone is trying to bare their heart and is struggling to get the words out, and to know when tune everything else out to give them your full attention.  

There’s plenty of passionately loud music out there. Songs that radiate anger, or joy, or what have you, with enough zeal to ensure that you get swept up along for the ride. The subtleties of quietness meanwhile requires a deft touch. Too busy and you risk disturbing the reverie, too sparse and the whispers risk fading into the ether. In the arresting fragility and vulnerability of acts like Nick Drake, Keaton Henson and Julien Baker, the magic lies in every last moment feeling like it matters. Each note a stepping stone in calm still waters. The lines that the artists linger on and strain to release into the world carrying as much weight as the silence that follows. The best quiet music doesn’t drag you along for the ride, it makes you feel like a voyeuristic intruder to a therapy session, holding your breath so as not to make your presence known. 

There are moments on The King Of Misery where Daudi Matsiko absolutely nails it. Pressing play on opening track ‘Guilt’ leaves you wishing you could make the world stand still, so you can savour the expressiveness he pours into every syllable without disruption. The endearingly human little imperfections in the soft fingerpicked guitar, the way the arrangement follows the energy of the vocals, the arresting beauty of lines like “I told lies and then believed them, and I broke promises like skin” – all simply exquisite.

‘Fool Me As Many Times As You Like’ fleshes out the soundscape with an entrancing sax arrangement reminiscent of Talk Talk, managing to give greater depth and a lush feel to the track without sacrificing any of the intimacy. The airy autumnal folk of ‘Derby’s Dose’ has a deeply Nick Drake feel, albeit adding backing vocals into the equation that complement Daudi’s own voice beautifully. True to its name ‘Hymn’ hums with a kind of soulful resonance, with an infusion of subtle electronics and sax slowly spreading like a drop of dye in water, all culminating in an uplifting yet understated choral section echoing a message of “lay your weary head on me“. The gossamer whispered vocals on ‘Annihilation’, recalling Belwood favourites The Last Dinosaur, meanwhile capture Daudi’s artistry at its most intimate and ephemeral. 

Yet much like such a whisper, The King Of Misery‘s highlights feel frustratingly fleeting. For while it often finds the perfect balance between stillness and substance to keep you enraptured, the scales still tend to tip outside that tranquil little goldilocks zone. The stark sparseness of ‘Falling’ makes every note feel like an oasis in a vast empty desert, sadly letting Daudi’s spell over you fade in one of the many lengthy stretches of silence. At the opposite end we find ‘I Need You To Stop Calling My Phone’ finding numerous ways to disrupt the album’s quiet reverie. Once the jarring opening drone passes, we’re instead tormented by the same solitary note repeating all track long like a leaky tap dripping in the background. 

They say music is as much about the notes you don’t play, and never is that more true than in such soft-spoken and contemplative records as this. The night sky can’t all be starlight after all, it needs its share of darkness. A lot of albums that try to capture the kind of atmosphere found within this record fail because their sparseness feels like a lack of something. The space feels like something left unfilled rather than an intentional part of a whole, a deliberate pause to allow room for introspection. That’s certainly not the case here. Every note and syllable, or lack thereof, feels like part of a grand design. The bright points of brilliance are well worth your full attention when you find them, but at times there’s a frustrating amount of empty space between.