Second album from Yorkshire-based wave-maker, August Gilde.  A collection of observational songs that express contentment and offer hope.

Release Date: 8^th November 2024

Label: Self Release (Distributed through Hudson Records and Proper Records)

Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital

SOUNDS INTERESTING…

Animals is the second album from Yorkshire-based singer-songwriter August Gilde (known to his mother as Robin Shepherd).  It’s an intriguing affair, a collection of poems put to gentle, dream-inspiring music, with accompaniment provided by August’s deftly-fingerpicked acoustic guitar (he’s good at it, too), piano, pedal steel, double bass and, on just a couple of occasions, some softly-shuffling drum rhythms.  Sounds interesting?  It is.

August Gilde has been making a few waves lately.  His 2022 debut album, the John Wood-produced A Different Kind caused quite a stir, gaining national radio plays and featuring as the subject of a BBC session and, already, Animals is attracting media attention in all the right places.  This time around, August’s producer of choice is ex-Cole Porters bassist Tali Trow and the resulting album, recorded in August’s woodland cabin, has already attracted unconditionally favourable plaudits along the lines of: “…simply stunning music” and “…shows the growth and maturity of an artist about to bloom.”  We can’t disagree…

SOUNDS RICH AND SATISFYING

If, from the list of the instruments that August has selected to accompany his tunes, you’re expecting the sound on Animals to be sparse and pared-back, think again.  The sound is rich and satisfying, right from the outset.  The strummed guitars and pedal steel – underpinned by a spare-but-solid bassline – that get opening track Away Down the Lane off the ground sound glorious; August’s voice is pleasant and assured, but never dominant and, when he chips in with his own self-supplied vocal harmonies, the picture is complete.

Animals is full of songs that suggest that they were inspired by someone; it’s just difficult to put a finger on who that someone might be.  Perhaps the clearest clue as to the identity of August’s likely influences comes in Fast Lane, a wistful love song, sung to fingerpicked guitar and some discrete violin lines, when August appears to be giving the James Taylor school of songwriting his own personal twist.

A DEVASTATINGLY BEAUTIFUL DUET

August duets with Glastonbury Rising Talent finalist Lucy Kitchen on the piano ballad Songs for the Moon and the pair well and truly nail it.  Indeed, something very special happens when two of the finest young voices that you’ll hear this year join forces.  The verses, in which the pair alternate lines, are special but, when the voices harmonise on the “To where I live…” chorus, the effect is devastatingly beautiful.

Animals, the album’s title track, is a dreamy, thoughtful ballad with some lovely pedal steel highlights, Warmer is a pleasant, gentle country-flavoured song with more self-supplied vocal harmonies  and a world-weary lead vocal tone and Hourglass is an engaging, short, observational song with a snowflake-light guitar accompaniment, in which August compares the passage of life to the fall of sand through an hourglass.  It’s a well-used metaphor, but I’ve never heard it employed in such a refreshingly “who cares” way before.

HIGHLIGHTS

There is no shortage of highlights on Animals but, at a pinch, I’d have to name the album’s three closing tracks as my own particular favourites.  On an album that certainly isn’t short of passages of dreamy contemplation, it is, perhaps, Once in a While that takes the dreamy, creamy biscuit.  August’s gentle guitar is still with us but the background string effects, the piano and, particularly, the pedal steel grow in prominence as the song progresses.  For some reason that I can’t quite articulate, the song reminds me of Pink Floyd’s Grantchester Meadows, and it also instills the same sense of pastoral contentment.

The dreaminess remains for the excellent The Road, The River, The Place but, this time, there’s more of a country feel in the air.  Piano and shuffling drums drive the song along and, on a couple of occasions, August even manages to raise himself from his laid-back reverie to sound almost like Glenn Campbell. 

CONTENTMENT AND HOPE

And the air of contentment that has pervaded right the way through Animals reaches its zenith with closing track, Shade of Blue, a folky and optimistic song that encourages us all to “…see the world in the colour it is meant to be” instead of viewing it – as we are all tempted to, in these uncertain times – in the same old “shade of blue.”  You know:  it’s so satisfying to hear an album of observational songs that express contentment and offer hope.

Watch the official video to Animals – the album’s title track, featuring sand artist Kseniya Simonova (who also designed the album sleeve artwork) – here:

August Gilde online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / X (formerly Twitter) / YouTube / Bandcamp / Spotify

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