Yorkshire-based newcomer, Aidan Tulloch is carving out an exciting creative identity, with his innovative blend of pop, alternative, R&B, and instrumental. A composer, writer, and recording artist, he writes gritty and intimate contemporary music for the fever pitches of everyday life. Sometimes breezy, sometimes nocturnal, and as approachable as it is achingly romantic, his output is made to soundtrack euphoric nights, lazy mornings, and sun-soaked afternoons. His poems have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and performed live by Carol Ann Duffy as poet laureate. In 2020, he won the Kinsella Prize for the best poem written by a member of the University of Cambridge.
The young songwriter portrays life lucidly through his lyrics and compositions – summer skies and rainy nights, cars, suburbs, sports fields, and feelings – and shares a sensibility with the likes of Declan McKenna, Loyle Carner, and fellow-northerner Sam Fender. His meticulous attention to his craft is akin to FINNEAS, but Aidan takes this further, incorporating art-house composition and instrumentation inspired by the likes of Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, and The National. In 2020 he released EP Somewhere Without Lights to critical acclaim, an honest and nostalgic exploration of pre-University life and the transition from his youth to his present self. Now, having been afforded an extended period of contemplation in lockdown, he is emerging from his University room with a shimmering and beautifully authentic album-length record, Us & Oblivion.
Aside from a few moments of collaboration (including Home Late, with fellow rising star Emmeline Armitage), Us & Oblivion is self-produced, composed, and arranged. Classical composition meets contemporary pop for an exquisite collection of songs and instrumentals which document Aidan’s development, both personal and musical. Forced to live with himself and his thoughts for the past year, he found his mind falling into the past and reaching forwards to the future, existing, dreaming, and finding comfort.
The record’s exciting pop production is guided by lush strings and emotive piano with vulnerable but hopeful intimacy. Like a scrapbook, glimpses into Aidan’s past, present and future are carefully scattered throughout, with recordings of his Cambridge room window (The Start is a State of Mind), his own footsteps on a Yorkshire backstreet (Television Portrait), and even a guitar line from an old recording of his teenage band (You’re Home). There are still touches of the big euphoric sound that defined last year’s breakout EP, as well as glimpses of a melodic, LA scene-inspired escapism that hint to the influence of iann dior, Blackbear, and, perhaps most closely, Khalid.
“I’m calling it a ‘record’ or a ‘project’. It’s nowhere near collaborative enough or fully-formed to be my ‘debut album’. It’s more casual and nocturnal — it just happened by itself over the course of a year without me pushing it in a certain direction.”
