Loverman

‘If music be the food of love, play on...’ Shakespeare sagely suggested in The Twelfth Night, though he inadvertently encapsulated a second universal truth with his epigram, for the reverse is possibly even more accurate. Love is the food of music. Evoking exquisite joy and soul-crushing anguish – along with all the yearning, hoping, doubt and certainty in between – this elemental human force has fuelled an expansive canon of songs, tracks and tunes for centuries.

For James de Graef it is the fundamental building block of his artistic expression, as his stage name and debut album title explicitly attest. Yet while Lovesongs by Loverman will leave the listener in no doubt that love is all, the emotional embers at the heart of each of the record’s 11 songs – and the warm, intimate and candid atmosphere that pervades across them – also ensure that all of love is here to be experienced.