Control is the puzzling, androgynous masterpiece from Fyfe (aka Paul Dixon) that is his debut album – from the first, this is one of those albums that will force you to take a pause and listen – your ears will love you for it.
Puzzling because no one knows what the hell to categorise it as, some say glitchy R&B, some pop, alternative is still being thrown around, electronic, the list goes on but to state the obvious all that really tells us is that we’ve got yet another super talented young musician that has decided one genre ain’t enough, he’s going to fuse a whole bunch of them.
That ‘first’ I mentioned was the flat drumming, dramatic bells and clean vocal of Dixon’s in opening track ‘Conversations’ – I’ve sat down to write this review many times and found myself so hypnotised by the end of this first track I need to start over to re-focus.
‘Holding On’ starts to give you a flavour of some of the heartache ahead on this album, refer to ‘Solace’ and ‘In Waves’ for more feels – but to get to the root of that we must look backwards. One of the interesting things about Fyfe is the seeming false start that Dixon has had to come back from.
As a prodigal talent, Dixon dropped out of university to sign with Mercury Records, and yet despite having seemingly everything in front of him, the road wasn’t so smooth, and it’s taken starting from square one again to get from that first signing with Mercury to now releasing ‘Solace’ with Believe Recordings.
I’d wager that we are better off for it with the mature, heartstring-tugging, one-of-a-kind sound coming through on the album and especially on some of the previously mentioned tracks and lovely little pieces of gold like title track ‘Control’, ‘Veins’ and my favourite ‘For You’. Baroque influences, tortured guitar and keys, whispers of The XX and Fyfe’s voice himself which seems to personify melancholy.
Rating: ★★★★
Go buy yourself a copy now from iTunes.
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