Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Hamish Hawk has the kind of voice that makes you want to hear more. The Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter sings with clear diction and a deliberative manner, handling words with care, dotting i’s and crossing t’s as he delivers them to us. The tricks of the writer are preferred over those of the vocalist.Hawk’s 2014 debut album (released under his full name, Hamish James Hawk), was called Aznavour after the French chanson star. This was not just a gesture towards the auld alliance: the French habit of treating lyrics as the most important element in a song is echoed in Hawk’s work. He notes down phrases and idioms for potential use, ears attuned for le mot juste. As he puts it, “My life in music is very much a life of words.”His breakthrough came with 2021’s Heavy Elevator, nominated for The Skinny’s Scottish album of the year award. So was its follow-up, last year’s Angel Numbers. A Firmer Hand follows hard on the latter’s heels. Sounding more urgent than the melodic indie-rock of its predecessors, its 12 tracks are inspired by men Hawk has known or observed.Lovers are prominent among them, starting with the “goddamn handsome” ex in opening track “Juliet as Epithet”, whom the song tries unsuccessfully to forget. “Machiavelli’s Room” is an emphatic number about all-consuming sexual desire between an otherwise ill-matched couple, sung in an imposingly gothic tone. “Autobiography of Spy” is a noirishly twangy number about a secretive erotic double life. The lyrics are vivid and florid rather than introspective. Hawk has a performer’s taste for arresting lines, such as his description in the track “Men Like Wire” of the “dressmaker’s son” who “did an uncanny Frankie Valli as he cracked a can open”. The music, written with his band, punctuates these verbal flourishes with pounding drums and reverberant guitars. The song structuring is plain, as though shaped by the rich flow of words rather than inventive harmonic ideas. It’s Hawk’s voice that keeps us listening.★★★★☆‘A Firmer Hand’ is released by So Recordings
