Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock (Southbound)

For his 21st solo album, Robyn Hitchcock seems to be having fun. Since the trippy folk troubadour moved to the US and signed with Yep Roc, he’s brought a harder edge to his warped tales of everyday life (Mad Shelley’s Letterbox) and intense imagery (Sayonara Judge). That edge is courtesy of some of Nashville’s finest and harmony vocals from as unlikely sources as Wilco’s Pat Sansone, Gillian Welch and Grant Lee Phillips. There’s always a surreal killer on a Hitchcock album and that is I Want To Tell You About What I Want ,a highly melodic song about empathy, DNA and evolution which wryly suggests is the answer to people like Donald Trump. – Mike Alexander