Plush - More You Becomes You (2024) [Hi-Res]

Universally acclaimed when it was originally released in 1998, Liam Hayes' solo debut is a soft-focus chamber pop classic, filled with sensitive and memorable Burt Bacharach-via-Brian Wilson ballads that have inspired everyone from Destroyer to Thom Yorke.

There's a moment on the beautiful '(I Didn't Know) I Was Asleep' when Hayes' voice struggles to hit a high note and cracks into a rasp before he lets out a laugh and carries on regardless. It's this vulnerability that lends his songs a realness that's too rare - Hayes writes pop music that draws from some of the American canon's all-timers, but his emotions drip from each word and every note. The songs are powerful enough to lodge themselves in yr mind for years and they're not showy, they're smart. There's no lo-fi trickery here, it's as it comes; Hayes is a perfectionist if anything, with an ear for arrangement that justifies the Brian Wilson comparisons, but at times the album sounds like you're in the room with him and his piano - the frills are in the details, not the aesthetic.

He released his debut single in 1995, taking three years recording his next single before releasing 'More You Becomes You'. And the early arrangements that Hayes had considered while writing the album were scrapped at the last minute - he decided to set up a tape machine alongside his piano (you can year him knocking the mic and muttering "ah that helps" on the intro to opening track 'Virginia') instead. The complexity of the songs is still present, mostly in the lavish vocal harmonies, but in their raw, skeletal state they hit much harder; over a quarter century later, they still sound timeless.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Plush, Liam Hayes - Virginia (2:06)
1.02 - Plush, Liam Hayes - More You Becomes You (4:48)
1.03 - Plush, Liam Hayes - (I Didn't Know) I Was Asleep (2:44)
1.04 - Plush, Liam Hayes - The Party I (0:31)
1.05 - Plush, Liam Hayes - The Party II (0:30)
1.06 - Plush, Liam Hayes - Soaring And Boring (3:12)
1.07 - Plush, Liam Hayes - (See It In The) Early Morning (4:03)
1.08 - Plush, Liam Hayes - Save The People (3:07)
1.09 - Plush, Liam Hayes - Instrumental (2:14)
1.10 - Plush, Liam Hayes - The Sailor (4:31)