Following on from my recent post covering Kayla Grace’s excellent Bird In A Cage, here is another track that was inspired by our collective COVID-19 experience. S J Williams wrote the lyric to Hold Your Course at the beginning of the lockdowns, seeking to encapsulate a universally supportive message as the world started to look increasingly unhinged.
The sound employed by Williams here clearly draws on some of the more experimental work of Bon Iver, but he also cites the electronics of James Blake as an influence. The heavy use of vocal samples and clashing crisp electronic soundscapes with live instrumentation gives this a beautifully textured feel — harmony emerging from cacophony, like the hand of a friend reaching out to pick you up out of the chaos.
Williams spent six years at college refining his skills as a flute player, but he is now using that classical training to explore more experimental sounds. By combining influences as disparate as folk and jazz, and pop and classical, S J Williams is set to create new musical forms altogether.