KID HARPOON – COLLECTING RAIN REVIEW

Chatham born Kid Harpoon (or Tom Hull as it is more likely to say on his birth certificate) never fails to delight and impress.

His indie-folk songs, often nodding towards Leonard Cohen show an innate musical talent of which most can only dream. If you need any further proof than this, just check out his 2009 album, “Once”.

Hand in hand with this formidable talent comes Kid Harpoon’s seeming constant search for the new: another – maybe a better way of expressing himself.

So it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that with Kid Harpoon’s latest effort marks a profound change from all that lies behind him.

“Collecting Rain” dispenses with the acoustic instruments, the guitars, mandolins and backing strings that populate the “Once” album.

Instead, the song is a master class in sampling and electronica. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Kid Harpoon had been doing this kind of thing for years.

It opens with a simple set of chord progressions on a vintage keyboard and Hull’s echoing voice before more and more intricate flavours come in, weaving in and out, out and in.

The result is something between Peter Gabriel and (though it pains this writer to say so, after the travesty that was their interpretation of ‘Comfortably Numb’) the Scissor Sisters.

It’s a sombre sounding song, mixing a world-weary sadness (“I’m not so old/but I’ve seen enough/to know that we all live alone”) with a voice of encouragement: “we need to keep belief/for without hope there is no courage”.

In the space of just over four minutes, Kid Harpoon has produced something truly enchanting: something sumptuous, beautiful and ultimately uplifting.

If there is more of this sort of thing around the corner, we’re in for a right old treat.

You can hear “Collecting Rain” here:

Visit Kid Harpoon’s website at: http://www.kidharpoon.net