Building up a huge portfolio of work, (still a member of The Soup Dragons) HiFi Sean and (renowned solo artist) David McAlmont have released 3 albums in the past 2 years. Totalling a combined 36 (and growing) batch of songs, the work of HiFi Sean and McAlmont continues to develop and gain critical acclaim. Recently released album Twilight contains the incredible “Sorry I made you cry” single, and it’s supporting unique video. Damian Robinson caught up with HiFi Sean to find out more.
Congratulations on the three albums, that’s some run of form.
Thank you, we got together in 2019 as I hoped David would be on my album FT and we carried on through lock down. I hate the word project when people use it in music terms, but we’re two artists working together because we get on well and we seem to produce interesting music.
Twilight is your third album in two years, and a ‘sister’ album to Daylight; can you explain the premise a little
Sure. The first album, HAPPY ENDING, came out at the end of lock down; so the title and the sound was quiet up and electronic as we wanted it to feel like a celebration. Our second album, DAYLIGHT, came out last year and it was all about a Summer odyssey and euphoria. And this album, TWILIGHT, is the companion to DAYLIGHT as it depicts the darker winter months so as TWILIGHT ends it takes you back to DAYLIGHT, creating a loop of ideas.
Wow, that’s very conceptual
Me and David both work in concepts, there’s all sorts of colour palettes and ideas we plan out before we make any music, and that’s really important. So we have concepts like ‘wonky Prince’ and ‘drifting out into space’ on this album. We need those ideas to help us build up from there.
‘Sorry I made you cry’ is a great single.
Thanks, that came from the ‘wonky Prince’ concept. We really enjoyed making that and also the video for it, which looks really sinister and was brilliantly put together by our Artist friend ARBER. Our aesthetic and visual element is very important to us and ARBER helped with the creation of digital inner sleaves which you can find online. The whole pieces are important to what me and David do.
You’re coming to the Glasshouse soon in support of Andy Bell from Erasure, with so many songs to choose from do you know the set-list yet?
Not yet, we’re doing about 30 minutes so me and David are building out the set now. I always love playing up in the North East region though so I can’t wait. We used to play the Old Riverside with The Soup Dragons and we always thought it was a great venue and great crowd.
There’s talk of a new unreleased track coming soon to coincide with the tour can you tell us about that?
I can, it’s a song called Orange Sunshine and it’s with David’s relative Sawlty – it’ll be out on the 30th April and it’s a really interesting mix of David’s vocals and Sawlty’s hip hop style. It’s really unique and we’re really proud of it.
TWILIGHT is out now. HIFI Sean and David McAlmont play The Glasshouse on May 8 with Andy Bell.