pigbaby - i don't care if anyone listens to this shit once you do (2024) [Hi-Res]

Pigbaby’s debut album for Vegyn’s label is a triumph of DIY, dare-to-differ songcraft that simply sounds like nobody else. Nasal poems and vaulted falsettos appear to shapeshift in/out of focus amid a drowsy melange of styles associated to ambient, folk, cloudrap and contemporary blooz, but beholden to none.

On radars since 2022’s ‘Palindromes’ snagged underground ears, pigbaby has emerged among his gen’s most enigmatic with a sound that could be roughly compared to the lo-fi styles of Mica Levi’s Good Sad Happy Bad as much as Rainy Miller’s heart-on-sleeve emo-rap and Roger Doyle’s avant collages, but also happily placed in his own lane. The drip-feed run-up to this album went on a bit too long, if ye ask we (blame number bumping on streams, probably), but it’s finally all collected here in ‘i don't care if anyone listens to this shit once you do’, whose title cannily riffs on a famous AFX LP name, and follows to portray the fluffy onesied avatar at his personalised and introspective best. Reputedly a graphic designer by trade, he brings a highly visual style to his music, with open-ended, pleasingly raw but finessed arrangements of nostalgia-jogging melodies scuffed with field recordings and turns of phrase that keep one coming back for more.

A large portion of the album has been in the aether for some time, with the likes of his 10 minute country scape ‘Texas Girl’ already lodged as a highlight along with the evocatively cinematic mise-en-scene of his ode to western Ireland ‘The Green Hills of Cornamona’, his regaling of a night ride in London ‘Baby foxes & me.’, and the closing time blooz of ‘Only You’, but there’s also a bunch of new gems to comment on. Album opener ‘Meep meep said the rat’ pits his effortless hands-on touch for sculpting noise and eerie atmosphere into unique sound poetry, and ‘Crying in Burger King’ beautifully lets all his circles bleed, balancing witty lyrical pathos and bathos in blunted garageband backdrop that reserves one of the year’s most unexpected switch-ups, and ‘Grandads Piano.’ toes the finest line of country folk schmaltz and poignance.

Consider it a healthy part of the summer 2024 listening diet, and beyond.

Tracklist:
1.01 - pigbaby - Meep meep said the rat (5:38)
1.02 - pigbaby - I'm here, with you (3:54)
1.03 - pigbaby - Life moves fast, so take my hand. (3:19)
1.04 - pigbaby - The Green Hills Of Cornamona (4:27)
1.05 - pigbaby - Baby foxes & me. (4:54)
1.06 - pigbaby - Far from home (4:06)
1.07 - pigbaby - Crying in Burger King (6:08)
1.08 - pigbaby - Grandads Piano. (3:42)
1.09 - pigbaby - I miss my baby girl. (2:28)
1.10 - pigbaby - Texas Girl (10:07)
1.11 - pigbaby - Only You (5:03)