Hellman (Henrik Lysgaard Madsen) has an unusual way of introducing himself.
He says, “I am a singer-songwriter from Denmark. One morning I opened my eyes with an almost complete song in my body. In a dream Neil Young had given it to me”. It sounds like a script plot from US TV series Dallas, back in the 1980s.
He adds. “That experience became the kick-off for an album that’s as stripped down as it is raw and honest” and “’Private’ is a sneak peek into the innermost depths of the Hellman mind.”
Well, it is certainly stripped down. It is just him and an acoustic guitar for the most part although he adds instrumentation selectively and appositely, and I don’t have to remind anyone, do I, that Dylan started off just like that and pretty much continued that way until his Judas moment.
Am I in order to mention Bob in the same breath as Hellman? Well yes I am. Hellman is every bit as direct as The Bard, writes teasing lyrics based on his own deep rooted experiences of winning and losing in life and by which he covets the listener to relate their own, never strays from the path he sets out on, gets straight to the point and finds a different tune in every song to boot.
I selected ‘Two Girls’ as the sample track for a variety of reasons including that it seemed the most melodic on the first hearing and that is wonderfully well written with staggeringly impressive lyricism from beginning to end. This is the opening verse.
“I was traveling down a dusty road/A girl said hello, she asked for my heart
Another one asked me to lend her my coat/ And to this day we’ve not been apart”.
Believe me, it reads like poetry, he’s a master storyteller and Bob himself would be impressed.
‘Private’ is Hellman’s first album as a solo artist but he’s hardly coming out of left field having worked with bands like The Setting Son, Emma Acs and SPEkTR.
Even so I’m amazed at the professionalism of this album. He even sounds as laconically life-weary as any self respecting US southern country-folk artist might expect to be and I’m certain the album, or at the very least selected tracks will garner plenty of attention across the Atlantic as well as in Europe.
(Continues after the Spotify link)
We can’t find any social links for Hellman right now. They will be added when we have some.
