BOO HEWERDINE – BORN (Reveal REVEAL063CDX)

BornRecorded in January, just before his 55th birthday, this five-track EP, limited to just 1000 copies, is something of a family affair in that it features his dad’s old piano and two of the songs are co-writes with his son Ben, who also takes sole credit on the last track. Preceding a new album later this year, it opens in reflective mood with ‘The Year That I Was Born’, opening with an electric pulse and piano before gradually swelling in sound as he recounts the events of 1961, among them the building of the Berlin Wall, the death of Hemingway, the cracking of the genetic code, the emergence of The Beatles, the arrival of Polaris and the trial of Adolph Eichmann in what is, essentially, a song about never knowing how the future will play out.

The first of the father and son tracks, ‘Hometown’ has the same feel, a few simple piano notes backdropping another nostalgic lyric, while the second gets a little livelier on the old fashioned carousel-waltzing ‘Swimming In Mercury’, another memory-based number that, in mentioning both birth and death, seems to be a tribute to both his son and his own father. ‘Bobby Fischer’ recalls seeing the chess legend leave to live in Iceland after being arrested in Japan, ultimately a song about life’s openings and endings, with the EP ending, aptly enough on Ben’s 59-second piano instrumental ‘Farewell’. Very much a walk down memory lane to his early years, it’s very much one of the dedicated fans, serving a possible taster for what lies in store on the new album.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: http://boohewerdine.net/

‘Hometown’ – video by John Douglas:


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