Mr. Percival

Mr. Percival – ‘All Of The People’

It seems like every week I’m falling in love with some new Aussie release, and I guess that’s the benefit of working at a music mag and a radio station – you get a flood of new CDs crossing your desk every day.

So my new musical infatuation comes in the form of Out of the Loop, the sophomore release from the truly amazing Bondi-based singer Mr. Percival (or Darren Percival as he’s otherwise known).  There’s not enough space to say how much I’m loving this album at the moment.  It’s such a positive, uplifting record and Darren’s voice is just phenomenal.  I mean, this guy trained under Bobby McFerrin – the same guy who sung ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’!!

Influenced strongly by gospel music, Out of the Loop is created solely by Darren’s voice – every drum beat, shaker, vocal backing and double bass is mimicked and created by Darren.  By utilising a variety of loop pedals, he records the backings and then has the ability to stop and start them whenever he wants.  Check out his MySpace page for videos, because it’s a hard one to understand if you’re not up with the workings of loop pedals. 

So everything you hear on Out of the Loop is created live, and that fact alone is mindblowing, and that’s before you even hear his heaven-sent voice.  He’s toured with some of Australia’s biggest acts, as well as graced the recordings of many a fantastic artist, including trumpeter extraordinaire James Morrison (not the UK bloke). 

He’s playing heaps of dates around Sydney, so go see him if you live there – expand your musical horizons, break free of your indie safety net and… just listen to this album!

http://www.mrpercival.com
http://www.myspace.com/mrpercival