Fyfe represents Paul Dixon’s second musical life. After an inconclusive dalliance with a major label as the winsome David’s Lyre five years ago, the talented 25-year-old is now redoing things his own way. The music is artfully conceived, precisely calibrated electropop, initially publicised with a memorable visual motif: Dixon’s head liberally trowelled with oil paint. It was a striking campaign, even if it suggested Fyfe might also be a reboot of those 1990s Natrel body spray ads.
In the flesh there’s no makeup, and while the guitar-wielding Dixon looks dreamboat handsome, he comes over as a little shy in this intimate space. Flanked by two synth wingmen, he recreates highlights from his recent album Control, a string of intricate, state-of-the-art chamber pop pearls. But there’s something old-fashioned about Dixon’s intuitive way with phrasing and melody that sets Fyfe apart from the current crop of black-box-enabled electro balladeers.
It’s not crooning, exactly, but his quavering voice is both technically adept and utterly beguiling. He isn’t the first to compare the first rush of love with narcotics, but on Veins, he manages to inject the word “drug” with over a dozen melodic inflections. A fondness for slightly archaic expressions suggests the sci-fi fantasy of a 1920s artist abruptly acclimatising to 21st-century technology: the 808 Gatsby. The wistful way Dixon trills “Is this not home, dear?” on the luminous St Tropez carries an echo of Chet Baker, another preternatural talent.
Another, perhaps unexpected influence is post-OK Computer Radiohead – the skittered beats and stark guitar lines of Holding On would easily slot into Amnesiac. He closes with the spacey Solace, his most effective calling card to date, a wheezy Mellotron intro that transmutes into a towering torch song. It’s been a slow burn so far, but Fyfe seems about ready to ignite.
