Brushstrokes of melancholia: the refined sound of Skydaddy’s new single ‘His Masterpiece’
The musician announced his debut EP with the new track.
Photo: Ollo Weguelin
His Masterpiece is the thought-provoking new single from Skydaddy, detailing the plight of an impressionist painter in Paris (inspired by the protagonist from Emilie Zola’s 1886 novel, L'Œuvre). The track stories the artist’s lack of fame in his own time, soon obsessing over what he believes will become his ‘masterpiece’, sealing his fate in the process.
It’s a sad track in many ways, filled with poetic little verses that give the tune a John Cooper Clarke on Xanax sort of feel, but it also echoes the effortless nuance and matter-of-fact pathos of well-established acts like Andy Shauf or the Magnetic Fields. But His Masterpiece also expands on the sound of jazz-cum-speakeasy-pop, standing beside contemporaries like Teenage Waitress and TINMAN.
The new release is lounge meets melancholia, and there the track shines. Skydaddy crafts an all-too-real tale of genius versus fame into four minutes of floaty bliss. It’ll be interesting to see what the rest of Pilot – the upcoming EP from which His Masterpiece hails – holds, but already the track has put this London-based musician on the radar, promising something a bit different in the tired, mass-pop landscape.
Pilot is out February 2nd.