Brighton's NICK HUDSON releases 'Kanda Teenage Honey' album on CD - introspection, intrigue and adventurous soundscaping

“Beautifully written, recorded, produced and arranged... all complimented by vocal that lives up to the same standard. No cheating, no fronting, just honest crafted musicality”  ~ Billy Gould (Faith No More)

"Kanda Teenage Honey is shockingly emotional, thoughtfully orchestrated and wonderfully curious lyrically. It is a record for true music lovers" ~ Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu)

"A profound, clever and vividly confessional Avant-pop composer, Hudson is always pushing the envelope in his works, his unique musical output forged via musical territory that is hardly explored" ~ The Spill Magazine

"There isn’t really anyone making music like Nick Hudson“ ~ The Quietus

“Nick Hudson is a unique talent. His song writing and performances are breathtaking.  He is long overdue being heard by a wider audience. This solo album is a peak in an already stellar career” ~ Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai)

"Scott Walker channeling Coil” ~ MOJO Magazine

"Genius” - BBC Radio (BBC Introducing)

'Kanda Teenage Honey' album order 
https://nickhudsonindustries.bandcamp.com/album/kanda-teenage-honey
Spotify  https://open.spotify.com/album/4WKJCeF2uXCudjxME03nye

Brighton avant-pop artist Nick Hudson announces the release of his new album 'Kanda Teenage Honey' on CD.  Complementing an expansive 16-track collection, this 4-panel CD digipak comes with an 8-page full colour booklet containing artwork by Nick Hudson and Berdia Arabuli and photography by Carl Solomon, Jack Hubbell Rosene and Kenneth Anger.

With recent coverage in Billboard, this album was recorded largely in a huge former Soviet movie studio in Georgia under the shadow of the Ukraine war. Born of geographical explorations amidst musical territory that is hardly touched on, this record was previewed by the singles 'For My Silence' and 'Khevsureti'.

Mixed by and featuring Toby Driver of Kayo Dot, this album involves numerous talented guests, including Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite, Stuart Dahlquist (Asva, Burning Witch, Sunn O))), Lizzy Carey (Bat For Lashes), Robert Wyatt collaborator Alfreda Benge, Christopher Nell (legendary German performer and collaborator of US theatre visionary Robert Wilson), and soprano prodigy Poppy Efemey.  

Recorded with Ilya Lukashev at Leno Studio and Sano Studio in Tbilisi, this album was mastered to analogue tape by Paul Pascoe (Barry Adamson, Beat Hotel, Sleaford Mods) at Church Road Studios in Hove, Hudson collaborates with some incredible Georgian musicians and his friend Seva, a Russian dissident who fled the FSB, having worked for Navalny. Hudson explains, "He contributes a poem narrating his thoughts on exile, through which I've layered field recordings of the recent Tbilisi and Paris protests, where many of us got tear-gassed."

"Russia attempted to invade Georgia most recently in 2008 and we've seen a vast influx of Russians fleeing the conflict and resettling in Tbilisi (which endures and suffers a pro-Russian government ideologically in conflict with most of its citizens). This geopolitical tension has inevitably made its way into the lyrical and musical texture of the record via the songs 'Hollow Man' and 'Sky Burial While Alive'. It also contains oligarch-hexing magic realism and a tribute to that vastly-neglected demographic – the old-school homosexual. Musically it encompasses art rock, black metal, ambient music, agitprop folk, charred goth rock, symphonic vastness and piano ballads -all infused with the energies and landscape of Georgia," says Nick Hudson.

In 2021, Hudson released his 'Font Of Human Fractures' album and the 'K69996ROMA:EP'. His band The Academy of Sun released their opus album 'The Quiet Earth' the year before. He's collaborated with such legends as Wayne Hussey (The Mission), Matthew Seligman (David Bowie, Tori Amos, Morrissey), Massive Attack's Shara Nelson, plus David Tibet (Current 93) and queercore icon GB Jones. His vast output also encompasses painting, film and a novel.

"As an album, 'Kanda Teenage Honey' explores ideas of preserving the sacred from the corrosively kleptocratic institutions of church and state: spiritual and material kleptocracy.  The title itself refers to a very real preservation of innocence derived from a story I heard of a local villager whose teenage son was shot and killed: the father had his son's body preserved in honey. As such, there are secular hymns for peace and lucid stillness, tales of saints de-martyring themselves and falling in love free of judgement from anachronistic scrutiny - a thinly veiled parable of queer love.  Two very close friends died within six months of each other during my first year in Georgia – there are requiems in the songs 'Archipelago' and 'Bardo', plus an acappella tribute to the Siberian husky that helped me grieve them during a retreat to the sublime mountainous region of 'Khevsureti' by the Chechen border, where despite being an ostensibly Orthodox country, pagan traditions are still passionately observed.  I dreamed eighty-percent of 'Bardo' in the energised serenity of this beautiful region while mourning my friend Jesse. Patrick, honoured in 'Archipelago', was one of my earliest mentors and a dynamically brilliant pianist.  They are much missed," explains Nick Hudson.

"'Ortolan' references the summer of 2021, when I fled to the same Isle Of Wight monastery at which Scott Walker had sought refuge in the sixties, as my mental and physical health hit a nadir and I was forced to leave the city I'd called home for twenty years. 'This Heat' refers to a return journey from a plague necropolis at the Chechen border, where giddily drunken park rangers piloting a 4X4 hurtled us passengers down a treacherous mountain pass and I briefly thought it might be the last song I'd ever write.  Since then, I've come to learn that Georgians are some of the virtuosic drivers in the world, even drunk, and I need not have feared."

'Kanda Teenage Honey' is out now, available everywhere digitally, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp, along with his new book 'The Land Exists So The Seas Don't Argue', showcasing a decade of lyrical output in five albums plus ephemera with a foreword by renowned Scottish author Chris Kelso.

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Brighton artist NICK HUDSON presents 'For My Silence', a statement of clarity after the storm - first taste of his new album

“Beautifully written, recorded, produced and arranged... all complimented by vocal that lives up to the same standard. No cheating, no fronting, just honest crafted musicality”  ~ Billy Gould (Faith No More)

"Kanda Teenage Honey is shockingly emotional, thoughtfully orchestrated and wonderfully curious lyrically. It is a record for true music lovers" ~ Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu)

"There isn’t really anyone making music like Nick Hudson“ ~ The Quietus

“Nick Hudson is a unique talent. His song writing and performances are breathtaking.  He is long overdue being heard by a wider audience. This solo album is a peak in an already stellar career” ~ Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai)

"Scott Walker channeling Coil” ~ MOJO Magazine

"Genius” - BBC Radio (BBC Introducing)

British avant pop artist  Nick Hudson presents his new single 'For My Silence',  the first offering from his forthcoming album 'Kanda Teenage Honey', recorded largely in Georgia under the shadow of the Ukraine war, featuring some incredible Georgian musicians in a huge former Soviet movie studio.

Mixed by Toby Driver and mastered to analogue tape by
Paul Pascoe at Church Road Studios in Hove, this album was recorded and engineered by Ilya Lukashev at Leno Studio and Sano Studio in Tbilisi.

"This is a song about apologizing to those you love for the period in which you disappeared to make bad life choices, while also singling out those who stood by and did nothing in the name of friendship during this period. The period in question was the third lockdown, where I literally had a glimpse of hell courtesy of a significant mental health collapse," says Nick Hudson.

"This is a reflective song, both confessional and confrontational.  The piano for the record was tracked on a 1953 Steinway grand in Leno Studio in Tbilisi – a former Soviet movie studio whose live room is vast enough to record orchestras."  

This is Hudson's first release since the
'Lights Svoboda' single, released in 2022 support of Ukraine, for which all proceeds were contributed to charities directly involved in humanitarian aid efforts.

Hudson adds, "The video stars my friend Nika – a 17-year-old Georgian aspiring actor, and whom I've found myself mentoring in cinema.  It was shot in a Stalin-era secular graveyard on the mountains outside of Tbilisi and incorporates footage of the actual vocal sessions in the studio, captured by Vlad Gutsin, a 20-year-old refugee from Tomsk. Gigi Koberidze and Beqa Minadze, on drums and guitar respectively, are two of the finest musicians I've had the privilege to work with."

A prolific figure on the UK music scene, Hudson's latest album 
'Font Of Human Fractures' was released in 2021, followed by the 'K69996ROMA:EP' later that year. These were Hudson's first solo works in 5 years, only one year had passed since 'The Quiet Earth', the opus album from his band The Academy Of Sun.

Nick's vast output also encompasses painting, film, and a novel. Hudson has also collaborated with
Wayne Hussey (The Mission), Matthew Seligman (Bowie, Tori Amos, Morrissey), members of Kayo Dot, David Tibet (Current 93), Asva, queercore icon GB Jones, as well as Massive Attack's Shara Nelson. Having toured 3 continents, highlights include shows with Mogwai, Toby Driver and Keith Abrams (Kayo Dot), and Timba Harris (Mr Bungle, Amanda Palmer).

Hudson has also just released his book
'The Land Exists So The Seas Don't Argue'. Limited to 50 numbered and signed copies, this is the first volume featuring his lyrical output across the last decade, encompassing five albums plus ephemera created at the same time as the main works – satellite poems that inhabit the same world as each of the primary cosmologies. This collection is possessed of a searing intensity and unity of vision - paganism, queer love, grief, death, ecstasy, radical politics, social satire, hymns to nature and her rhythms and forces. The book also features a foreword by renowned Scottish author and artist Chris Kelso.

As of January 11, the single 'For My Silence' will be available on
Bandcamp, followed by other platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music, soon afterwards. The full album 'Kanda Teenage Honey' will be released on March 15.

CREDITS
Composed, produced and arranged by Nick Hudson
Nick Hudson – Steinway piano, acoustic guitar & all vocals
Gigi Koberidze – drums
Beqa Minadze – electric guitars & ebow
Engineered by Ilya Lukashev at Leno and Sano Studios, Tbilisi
Produced by Nick Hudson
Mixed by Toby Driver in NYC
Mastered by Paul Pascoe at Church Road Studios, Hove, UK
Video directed by Nick Hudson
Video actor - Nika Shavgulidze
Artist photography by Carl Solomon
Single cover artwork by Kenneth Anger