S J Williams is turning his classically trained ear to exploring and creating new music. Having spent 6 years at college honing his skills as a flute player, he is now bent on creating new sounds and combining the influence of folk, jazz, alternative pop and classical music into new songs.
Hold Your Course all stemmed from the opening vocal samples and the harmonic and rhythmic clashing between the different pitches. The lyrics, written at the start of the Covid lockdowns, are words of reassurance to someone who has lost direction in an upside down world. Williams contrasts the dry, electronic sound of the samples with acoustic instruments (flute, whistles, saxophones) building up to a climatic instrumental before the song returns to its understated opening material.
It starts with drifting pulses, tape like in the way wobbles, before vocals are introduced in a way that somehow reminds me of Scott Walker. Before too long we build in texture, then we transition again to the warble, accentuated by woodwind, wonderfully juxtaposed against electronic sounds…
You can support S J Williams and buy this and other releases from Bandcamp.
