A one-off release, the enigmatic Belfast songsmith is back with a new single that finds him stripping back the sonics, to craft something of an unadorned and unassuming beauty. Pared back of arrangement and unspoiled by overproduction, “Love Hz” lets Southern’s lyrics do the talking on this carefully crafted lo-fi release.
Written on a visit to see the artist, producer and pal Stevie Scullion (AKA Malojian) in Antrim Town, the pair set about working on “Love Hz” at his home studio back in 2021. Devising its knotty acoustic riffs, spiralling backwards guitar licks, and rattling percussive stutters, Thom Southern put the finishing touches to the song in Bangor, NI earlier this year. Proving to be a rejuvenating trip and a prolific experience, Thom remembers of writing with Stevie:
“I’ve always admired totally independent artists like Stevie, making their own music for themselves and never compromising their craft. Meeting up with him again at this point in my life after years of working with different industry types/record labels became quite a liberating creative experience. It’s not surprising the first thing we did was start jamming together in his studio and before we knew it we’d already finished a couple of songs, ‘Love Hz’ being one of them. I was heavily listening to Beck’s ‘One Foot In The Grave’ album at the time and our writing sessions were definitely becoming more and more inspired by the mentality and attitude of that album. We continued to write more songs for a couple of days after that… it felt effortless.”
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