Andy
White is a poet and powerbook-toting troubadour. He grew up
in Belfast, surrounded by Irish beauty and terrorist violence.
His father is a political writer and his grandmother was a
piano player. Music and lyricism run in the family. boy
40 is Andy White's 12th international release. the album
begins with Andy 'going solo' with his guitar and ends with
him and an orchestra, trying to see God.
From
his very first album Rave on Andy White, Andy was always going
to be trouble. The title was a reference to a W.B. Yeats poem
or a Van Morrison song - take your pick. The song Religious
Persuasion was a slap in the face for those who connect religion
with violence. Melody Maker's album review proclaimed "Yer
man's a genius" and Andy White had arrived.
In his
own words: "I grew up hearing folk music dividing people
into one side or the other. I wanted to write a new folk music.
Uniting our traditions with the rock music we loved and the
new political future we hoped for. I started off writing poems
and then picked up an acoustic guitar when I heard John Lennon
sing 'Give Peace A Chance'. Put them both together, that's
all."
boy
40 touches the heart of our time for those of us facing
middle youth, in a world where it is hard to feel fully grown.
Andy White is a coherent voice in the midst of all the generation
txt confusion. From the innocence of the young Belfast boy
watching the parades in The Twelfth Of July, all the way through
to the experience of the man considering the western world's
very own war on terrorism in The Fortune Teller's Right and
Everything You've Got. It is an album about war and peace,
about looking for a new home in the sun and searching for
spiritual enlightenment.
boy
40 was written in London and Melbourne, Andy's new home.
For the first time since on his earliest recordings, Andy
played all the instruments. As a result, there is an offbeat
and spontaneous vibe to the proceedings. The album was engineered
and co-produced by Australian Simon Polinski (The Church,
ALT) with two tracks co-produced by the Scotsman behind Narcotic
Thrust, Stuart Crichton. There is an element of surprise and
a groovy quality to the recordings that stems from an entirely
laid back approach to the process itself ( the Melbourne effect).
The advantage
of being older and wiser is that you can do and say what you
want in the full knowledge that you can handle the consequences.
The advantage of being a grown up is that you have the option
of behaving like a child. Seize the moment, light the incense
and experience the innocence. It's cool to care.
