Recorded during a Northern Irish winter in a converted shed on a dairy farm near Belfast, local singer/songwriter David Hosking's latest offering, All That Beauty, is a quiet record for the most part, but one that, paradoxically, impacts like the loudest rock. Instrumentation-wise, it's world-class stuff: there are vibraphones, vintage drums, whistling, harmonica, hand and knee slaps and double bass, as well as Hosking's trademark guitar playing, all of which blend and swirl and add up deliciously to a whole that is decidedly more than the sum of its parts.
Opener, All Or Nothing, is breathy and beautiful, while at the same time substantive, and builds to a crescendo of sorts that is all pay-off, with backing vocals from Charlie Webb to absolutely die for, setting us expertly up for the rest of this gorgeous album.
The title track is a lament for lost love – hardly original songwriting territory – but this is where Hosking stands iconoclastically apart from his peers, mining familiar themes, yet doing so with originality and grace, not to mention a precious, precocious voice that flies deliciously under the listener's emotional radar. Talking of love, before long you'll find yourself quite romantically involved with this record, without – fittingly perhaps – knowing really how or why it's happened.
Like a lot of Hosking's body of work, there's a slow burn quality to All That Beauty that will gradually see it become one of your most valued volumes. Live, Hosking continues to ply his trade in the sometimes harsh Melbourne music scene, where true music fans might worry slightly about a soul as obviously sensitive as his. On record, though, is where he truly shines, as evidenced absolutely by these 12 songs.
