Artist alert: Hozier

Irish musician Hozier’s quiet demeanour is at odds with a commanding musical approach that has grown in depth and stature. Born Andrew Hozier Byrne, he was raised on a steady diet of rhythm and blues, soul, jazz and “deep dark stuff stretching from Chicago to the Delta,” he writes on his blog.
His first live experience happened when he was 15, when he fronted a soul band.Hozier is a self-taught guitarist and pianist, has studied music at Trinity College Dublin (where he also played classic rock with the Trinity Orchestra!). The restless artist couldn’t wait four long years to complete his course at the college (since the goal was to write, record and perform his ‘own’ music). So, Hozier dropped out, and set up a simple home studio in his attic. It proved more fruitful than his experiments in professional studios with other producers. Hozier’s poetic evocations met 21st century blues music, which were reproduced on his debut four-track EP. He played all the instruments (Fiachra Kinder helped out on drums), sang all the parts and recorded at home. Except for the raw and emotional Cherry Wine that was recorded live at 6 am on an abandoned hotel rooftop – with accompaniment from the dawn chorus.
The recurring theme in a lot of his songs is liberation of the self. “That was also the end of the first relationship I ever had… Where do you end up after that? As an individual: the individual that you were beforehand, or the individual you were when you were in love...?” he wrote on social media. Another kind of love is the subject of his video for Take Me to Church that tackles LGBT oppression. It’s a powerful talked-about film that references the repression of gay people in Russia through a personal story of two gay lovers subjected to violence.