Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A TRUE MASTER OF HIS CRAFT
NICK MULVEY RETURNS TO BELFAST’S EMPIRE
It has been a little over a year since Nick Mulvey released his brilliant sophomore album ‘Wake Up Now’ and cemented his position as one of the most interesting songwriters and performers in the game. We’ll never forget the moment we first saw Nick, a handsome, stylish and very assured figure standing front and centre of the massive Belsonic stage at Custom
House Square back in 2013.
He not only upstaged his headliner that night, Ben Howard, but, for us, he was the standout performer of the entire Belsonic run that year.
London-based Nick has an interesting back story. With years of formal education in Havana studying music and art, as well as being an active member in Mercury Award nominees Portico Quartet, he already had a wealth of musical knowledge before coming to the fore with a solo project in 2012.
His first musical interactions were with piano and drums before he acquired a guitar in Southern Spain at the age of 18. He moved to Cuba a year later, and returned to the U. K. to study ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, submerging himself in different styles of music but specializing in West and Central African in particular.
It was during this time that Mulvey met his Portico Quartet bandmates in 2005, where he played the Hang. After a successful stint with the outfit – which included a Mercury Prize nomination in 2008, 150 shows worldwide, and signing to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records – Mulvey decided it was time to leave in 2011 and return to his first inspiration, the guitar.
With an abundance of genres at his fingertips, Mulvey set about creating a sound that was both striking and unique, intertwining influences of great musicians such as Nick
Drake, Joni Mitchell, and Tom
Waits with a variety of African styles, including guitarist
Kawele.
This resulted in the sweet melodies and rhythmic strumming patterns that have gone on to be his trademark sound. Nick’s full-length debut,
First Mind, arrived in 2014 via
Universal’s Fiction and Harvest
Records, going on to become a
Top Ten album in the U. K. as well as a Mercury Prize nominee.
Follow up long player, Wake
Up Now, was recorded live in the studio with his band and producer Ethan Johns. You can hear touches of Paul Simon’s
Graceland in the lightness and sophistication of the harmonies, shades of Caribou and Four Tet in Nick’s organic approach to electronics, and even the seeking spirit of Cat Stevens within the quieter moments of acoustic reflection.
In short, Nick is a fantastic talent and his show at the Empire next Thursday, September 19, will be unforgettable. Swing by if you can. Last remaining tickets are available from Ticketmaster.