monsters Tom Odell

• 1 numb 02:34
• 2 over you yet 03:38
• 3 noise 01:38
• 4 money 02:56
• 5 tears that never dry 03:24
• 6 monster v.2 02:19
• 7 lockdown 01:56
• 8 lose you again 03:07
• 9 fighting fire with fire 02:39
• 10 problems 00:39
• 11 me and my friends 02:33
• 12 country star 01:36
• 13 by this time tomorrow 02:45
• 14 streets of heaven 03:00
• 15 don't be afraid of the dark 06:07
• 16 monster v.1 02:31
• Total Runtime 43:22

Info for monsters

Fernab des Lärms um seine vielfältigen Erfolge – drei Top 5-Alben in England inklusive dem Platin-dekorierten Chartstürmer „Long Way Down“, zwei Top 10-Singles, ein Brit-Award 2013 in der Kategorie „Critic's Choice“ gibt es eins, das Tom Odell immer Bodenhaftung verliehen hat: das Schreiben von Songs. Als klassischer Songwriter – der mit einem renommierten Ivor Novello als Songwriter des Jahres ausgezeichnet wurde – hat er sich mehr denn je auf seine Leidenschaft verlassen, als er „numb“ schrieb, seine erste Single für 2021.

Nachdem es in den Jahren 2018 und 2019 über weite Strecken nicht gut um seine mentale Gesundheit bestellt war, schrieb sich Odell aus dem Tief heraus, ließ irgendwann seinen Schutzwall sinken und goss seine Gefühle in neue Musik, die sein viertes Album darstellt, das später in diesem Jahr veröffentlicht wird. Es scheint wie eine kühne kreative Geburt und die Wiederherstellung von Odells Stärke zugleich. Das alles ist auf seiner neuen Single „numb“ hörbar, deren tiefschwarze Molasse mit Odells schlichtem Gesang über kargem Klavier beginnt – „I hold my hand over the flame, to see if I can feel some pain“, singt er – bevor unheimliche, keuchende Elektronik und Schichten abgehackter Beats den Song mit klebriger Schwermut umhüllen.

Inspiriert von den experimentellen Soundlandschaften der Musikerin Mica Levi, wurden die synthetischen Texturen gewissenhaft mit akustischen Verzierungen verschmolzen. „Ich würde sagen, dass es eine Zeit gab, in der ich mich von allem abgekoppelt gefühlt habe“, sagt er über die textliche Inspiration zu „numb“. „Ich hatte das Gefühl festzustecken, als wäre ich im Begriff, den Sinn für Leichtigkeit zu verlieren.”

Odell steht seit er 21 ist als Musiker in der Öffentlichkeit – damals ging sein selbstgeschriebenes erstes Album „Long Way Down“ auf Nr. 1 und brachte ihm eine Top 10-Single (das epische „Another Love“) sowie einen Brit-Award ein. Heute, mit 30, ist Odell klar, dass der Wirbelsturm um sein Debüt eine Arbeitsmoral losgetreten hat, die schließlich zur Besessenheit wurde. Sie erreichte ihren Höhepunkt im September 2019, als Odell, gerade von der Tour mit „Jubilee Road“ zurück, direkt nach LA weiterreiste, um ohne Pause mit dem Schreiben für das nächste Album zu beginnen. „Damals wurde die chronische innere Unruhe, mit der ich schon einige Jahre lang zu kämpfen gehabt hatte, größer.“ Eines Morgens wachte Odell auf und „konnte keine Musik mehr machen“. Ihm war klar, dass sich etwas ändern musste. Am Ende flog er nach Hause, fuhr direkt zum Haus seiner Eltern und fühlte sich langsam besser.

Langsam aber sicher übertrug Odell seine Erfahrungen in Musik. Gleichzeitig wurde ihm bewusst, dass sich der textlich erweiterte Horizont auch in einer Expansion seiner Musik widerspiegeln musste und viele der Songs auf dem Album – die zusammen mit Songwriter Laurie Blundell und Produzent Miles James entstanden sind – neigen zu einem etwas elektronischeren, Bedroom-Pop-Sound, der Odell in den letzten Jahren immer stärker fasziniert hat. Diese neu erwachte Liebe zu selbstgemachtem Elektro-Pop passte zum Ausbruch der Pandemie und so entstanden die Songs auf viel rohere Weise um die Instrumente herum, die er gerade zur Hand hatte, wie Moog-Synthesizer. Dieser Schritt war sowohl den Bedingungen als auch einer Art Forscherdrang geschuldet. Es sind also unheimliche Synthesizer und markerschütternde Beats, die den Sound verstärken. Und obwohl seine neue Musik zum Teil schwerwiegender Natur ist, ist in der Herangehensweise eine Leichtigkeit spürbar, die bedeutet, dass Odell der größte Trick, den Pop zu bieten hat, gelungen ist: Schwermut in strahlenden, freudigen Melodien zu verbergen. In dieser merkwürdigsten aller Zeiten, steht diese neue Musik für den Anfang des zweiten Kapitels von Odells fortwährender musikalischer Reise.

Tom Odell

Tom Odell
In early 2014, a somewhat exhausted Tom Odell suddenly realized that he had spent more than a year promoting songs from his debut album Long Way Down, the album which had propelled him to tremendous success and notoriety upon release the previous year. The album debuted at #1 on the UK chart, accumulated 8 Gold and 2 Platinum certifications around the world, sold over a million copies worldwide and garnered over 200 million cumulative views on YouTube. Odell also knew that the success of the album had meant that he hadn’t written any new material throughout the whole cycle of promotion and live shows. For such a hugely talented writer, whose first collection had seen him honored with the Ivor Novello Award for Best Songwriter, it was overwhelming to think that the gestation period for the first set of songs – his whole adolescent and adult life, basically – might need to be condensed into a very short period of writing new material for his second album.

It’s a typical issue facing every creative artist, how to find the time to write a follow-up to an album which, in this case, was lauded by supreme songwriters including Elton John, Billy Joel and The Rolling Stones, who invited Tom to support them at London’s Hyde Park.

The youthful reserve which was so apparent when Tom Odell first arrived on the music scene, with no expectations and no preconceptions, soon was replaced by idealism, stoicism and conviction that if you were going to do something, then it should be done at your own pace.

So Odell did what many artists have often done before him, called a halt to the madness, booked himself a flight out of London, and went to New York, where he rented a tiny apartment in the East Village, ultimately disappearing into a city where it’s easy to be a stranger and easier still to be alone. Dominated by a grand piano, this tiny apartment refuge in a city where he knew very few people, would come to inspire a regrouping of thought and intent, and ultimately a redefinition of what Tom Odell is all about. This is where work began on his new album WRONG CROWD (RCA Records).

Watching films by night and wandering the streets of Manhattan by day became only mildly schizophrenic when this schedule/lifestyle was interrupted by small things like supporting Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden a few times. Life suddenly retained balance and, after that, the songs just poured out.

A brief return home in the Spring of 2014 saw Tom tour Europe and collect his prized Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, but by September his wanderlust kicked in again and he left London, this time to LA where he rented an apartment in the back streets of Echo Park. It was in LA, home and adopted home to so many legendary singer/songwriters that WRONG CROWD began to take shape. Along with producer Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, and Adele) and Tom himself at the helm of production, the album’s sound evolved into a more rhythmic, energetic production. Comments Tom: “With the brilliant Jim Abbiss producing, I wanted the songs to sound big and dramatic; big strings and melodies emphasizing the songs further, rich in musicality and holding nothing back. I’d been touring for a few months by this point with my dear friend Andy Burrows(drums) who plays with such flair. His drums provided the darkness and excitement. On the track ‘Silhouette’ I had always imagined a big Gershwin- style introduction, which we recorded at Abbey Road. But most of the recording was done in Rockfield in Wales which provided the kind of quiet we needed to make such a loud noise.”

As recording continued, a narrative for the album began to emerge.

“The album follows a narrative of a man held at ransom by his childhood, yearning for it, yearning for nature. A desire for innocence in this perverse world in which he now lives. It’s a fictional story but the emotions and feelings are obviously ones I have felt – but the stories are elaborated and exaggerated. I wanted to create a world with a heightened sense of reality, like in a Fellini film.”

Always a film buff, Tom’s New York sojourn had expanded his huge interest in film as an art form. Work by Won Kar Wai, Paolo Sorrentino, Terrence Malick, Wim Wenders and Fellini became the backdrop to his rather solitary New York life and inevitably influenced the album. “The songs I was writing began being about isolation, growing up, trying to fit in. I began looking back and inwards, using myself as a starting point but letting my imagination run wild with a story. I imagined the music to be a soundtrack....that beautiful image of the weeds growing around the tree and suffocating it in ‘Thin Red Line’ by Malick, of man destroying nature, crucially forgetting that he is part of it. That began to resonate with me.”

As the album progressed Tom began to craft a script for a collection of films released as music videos which follow the themes in his songs. It was then that he got in touch with director George Belfield, with whom he quickly formed a symbiotic relationship. The pair traveled to South Africa to shoot the first part of the film, based on a character plagued by self-destruction while living a hedonistic/nihilistic lifestyle. This video for the title track “Wrong Crowd” explores how that affects people around the protagonist.

“Ultimately his lifestyle destroys the only innocent thing he has left, his love. This closes the first part of the film, but the story continues” as seen in the video for “Magnetised.”

These striking videos are compelling companion pieces to what is a hugely assured, confident and energized second album from a remarkable writer and performer who chose to do it his way because he chose to do it right. Four years ago, Tom Odell was quoted saying the following, although the words still stand true today:

“Really, I’d love to live in a time when music gave people a real sense of elevation. When my music is sad I want it to be REALLY sad. When it’s happy I want it to feel euphoric...I suppose I want the record to express the heightened feelings and emotions we all get in our lives.”

WRONG CROWD (RCA Records) will be released on June 10th and the lead single “Magnetised” is out now.

This album contains no booklet.