“If there’s one word that sums up what this album is about, it’s ‘interbeing,’” Nick Mulvey said of, New Mythology.
Nick Mulvey has returned with his first album in 5 years, New Mythology, a 13-song collection full of Nick’s innate musicality and insatiable curiosity about the connection between humans and the planet we live on.
Recorded in Paris with veteran producer Renaud Letang (Manu Chao, Feist, Connan Mockasin), the album’s intimacy and candour are to be marvelled and confronted with.
The length since his sophomore release, Wake Up Now could be understood when you become aware of Nick Mulvey and the path he’s been on since that album. The songwriter moved from the UK to Ibiza, and then back again. He became a father, navigated the pandemic like all of us, and, simply, wanted to write deeper songs. Songs that connect with the listener rather than merely fill the silence.
Of these many paths and journeys, the most important was the internal one that allowed creativity. Mulvey didn’t want and certainly wasn’t going to repeat himself. New Mythology, can further be summed up as an attempt to embody the personal all the way to the planetary – and grasp their true inseparability.
An album’s compiled with songs that aim to recognise the symbiosis between family and friends, land and trees, soil and sky. While doing this, the term ‘interbeing’ becomes all the more understandable and potent.
An album that’s full of, not songs, but stories that recognise the peril of our heating planet but also celebrate the re-emerging, ancient ways of relating to the world and each other.
Sonically, the album is beautifully immersive. Not hiding behind studio trickery and manipulation, but perfect microphone placement, acoustic guitars and haunting harmonies. It also features lyrics with a depth not often heard in today’s modern songwriting. Providing a foundation to these qualities are rare beats that reinforce the energy despite vulnerability. Instrumentation and songwriting are used as washes of colour on an album that almost feels opaque in the word’s best sense.
The placement of lyrics, music and production on New Mythology, showcases an artist who’s not shy to be subversive and creative but knows exactly what they’re doing. While the album feels unbound and free, there’s always a structure that keeps our feet on the ground while our heads are in the clouds.
Listen to the single, Star Nation, below.
As the songs flow into each other, their sonic environment is so present. I almost can feel the warmth from the fire close by as it’s as if Mulvey, himself, is merely playing these songs on his own in a dark room in winter, then on a mastered/produced major-label album. The production aids this quality more than any article describing the album could explain. It’s raw but so fragile.
New Mythology, from the first song A Prayer Of My Own to Begin Again, gently take us down a path that is both self-aware and unsure. An album we can close our eyes to or follow the path ourselves and see what we find.
Listen to New Mythology below and see what you get from it:
