Like most stories from 2021, this one takes place during Covid. During this time of odd freedom and yet at the same time a complete lack of, London-based musician Gary Lover channelled his energy into his music. With a lack of plans comes a wealth of time to write, play, experiment and rediscover. “I’d just recently bought a Yamaha “Big Jam” RY9 drum machine, a nice little piece of kit that was very affordable,” he tells us. “Simple drum beats, both in minimal electronic patterns and on the flip, great big 80s drum sounds, bolstering and making everything sound that little bit more grander.”

Riding this new beat, Lover sewed the seeds for his new EP, The Beige One, out today via Some Other Planet Records. The result is four-track spin that lifts you up and carries you far. Despite being recorded on his own in his bedroom, the EP’s fully-formed, multi-layered sound conjures a band of Lovers. More fleshed out than the bare-boned rawness of his debut record Songs Of Fortune, Songs of Pain, there’s an electricity that transports and transcends. “I never want to over saturate my song-making by burning out and chiselling it down to a lifeless nub. It takes time to cook a good pie, and me do like a pie.”

We liked the EP so much, we persuaded Lover to pen an exclusive track-by-track guiding us through the tales and tribulations behind the songs, and then decided to share it with you below.

All Through The City

“I guess the song was inevitable: Covid, all that lockdown, All Through The City was what came out. This track was the first thing I’d written during that early moment of feeling boxed in, people clapping, me staring out of a window, only seeing my side of it. It’s not supposed to be all gloom though, it was more of an acknowledgement of where I was sitting with it all and the making of the song kind of put a little cherry on all that virus. L’hymne à la Cough.”

Modern Man

“Put yourselves in the shoes of the almighty, the ugly rich, the upper upper, the real naughty bastards and I think that’s what I did, in a strange over the edge-alternate-egotistical-money-money kind of way. The huge dividing line between poor and wealthy. Maybe I’m jealous? Maybe we are all jealous? Maybe any one of us can easily and quickly become something we’ve always detested and spat at.”

“I’ll smoke cigars tonight, piss on the poor and pass me the light”

Land of the Lame

“The lullaby of the four tracks. That early morning hazed dream feeling. Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock. Land of the Lame is a tip of the hat to the sound of my first album Songs Of Fortune, Songs Of Pain, in its stripped down and childlike approach, it’s the branch between that stuff and this. A semi-sensitive hit the sack track.”

Bad Luck

“The last song on the EP brings it all full circle. Bad Luck never intended to stand as a song that is perhaps a culmination of the other three tracks, but the more I think about it, I guess it does encompass everything into one. All that heart, disillusionment, loss, sarcasm, cycle of life, circle of love, sick of feeling sick.

Aside from the lyrics, I had a lot of fun with the sound of this song, it’s almost worldly in its own weird way. I can imagine the solo section being the background music for a beautiful petal-littered Bollywood scene of love, if the offer were to come up. And of course the money. Oh, the money.”

Gary Lover’s The Beige One EP is out now.
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