Hamish Hawk

With the release of Heavy Elevator in September 2021, Edinburgh-based Hamish Hawk established himself as a writer of heartfelt, headstrong, unashamedly literate songs to stimulate both pulse and psyche... His songs are filmic and romantic, blending wit, wisdom, resignation and beauty with a kind of sceptical joie de vivre, delivered in a rich baritone that has drawn comparisons to everyone from Jarvis Cocker to Scott Walker. A singer of style and guile peddling accessible intelligence: what’s not to love?

Angel Numbers

Angel numbers: a series of recurring numerical patterns or sequences which those who believe in such things invest with cosmic significance. Also, the name of the latest album by Hamish Hawk – an apt title for an artist who bounces between scepticism and wonder, who alchemises the quotidian, who is engaged in a constant quest to outwit and outflank the ordinary.

Like debut album Heavy Elevator (2021), Angel Numbers was produced by Idlewild’s Rod Jones at his Post Electric Studio in Leith, Edinburgh. It took a fortnight to record, split into two timeframes: one week of work between tours at the end of 2021, and another week in the spring of 2022. A record which spends 45 minutes wholly repudiating its opening line – ‘I haven’t the foggiest, faintest idea’ – Angel Numbers is thrillingly self-assured. It builds on what came before in order to transcend it. “I’ve been calling it a sister record to Heavy Elevator,” says Hawk. “Angel Numbers is a different record. I think that’s a good sign. You want development. I think there is a maturation that has happened.”

These are personal songs, knotty and self-referential, stitched together from a life being lived. Hawk is smart and literate but never detached. His songs breathe in the world and filter it back out again in a lovely half-recognisable jumble. “We’re all made up of our influences and inspirations and experiences,” he says. “I find that exciting. I hope that a song like ‘Acid Glance’ feels a bit like a quilt made of different squares. Yet it’s still quite obscure. I’ll never fail to be blown away by the many different ways people have related to what I’ve written.”