Stephen Fretwell

★★★★ Busy Guy SPEEDY WUNDERGROUND. CD/DL/LP

First LP in 14 years by ‘lost’ Noughties singer-songwriter.

One-time drinking buddy of Elbow’s Guy Garvey, in the mid-2000s Stephen Fretwell broke ground that subsequent singer-songwriters parlayed into far greater success, despite his song Run playing over Gavin & Stacey’s end credits. Fretwell’s relative lack of sales after Magpie

(2004) and Man On The Roof

(2007) was followed by years of disillusionment taken up with washing pots at Wetherspoons, re-doing his A-levels, childcare and a failed marriage. For the ironically titled Busy

Guy, Fretwell and his guitar were recorded in just two hours, with minimal backing added later, capturing his bad life choices, regrets and hopes at their most immediate. From the tiniest relationship detail to our greater place in the cosmos, the singer asks life’s big and small questions with grace and grandeur.

Busy Guy gives Fretwell a magnificent second chance, and a richly deserved one.