Kipp Boucher

Kipp Boucher announces the signing to Opus Kink-founded label Hideous Mink Records (Opus Kink, Alien Chicks, Fake Turins, Black Bordello). Teaming up with the rising label for the first time, the Brighton-based songwriter announces his new EP, with the title track Joy of Life as the first offering. 

So croons Kipp Boucher on the title track of his upcoming EP Joy of Life. Coming off the back of an extensive solitary writing period (some two years since the release of 2020’s Man on the Scene EP) the 27-year-old balladeer returns with a collective unlike anything else. Recorded at Farm Road Studios with the already distinguished producer and aforementioned studio owner Jake Smallwood, Boucher partners with Smallwood and Multi-instrumentalist Milo Mckinnon to create a masterful delivery of orchestral depth. 

Supported by his band The CurrentFantasy, Boucher’s arresting brand of piano-led soft rock is a cognizant nod to supposedly simpler times; inspired by the likes of Scott Walker, Weyes Blood and Margo Guryan. Lyrically, it catalogues the often frenzied internal monologue of the young man of the modern day - taking cues from idols such as Randy Newman and Dory Previn, the Hackney-based artist draws on the past as a parallel to lament today’s social condition - with a swing of the hips, tongue in cheek and a modern sense of sardonic despair.

Catch it live at the Sebright Arms, London (30th July) and Folklore Rooms, Brighton (26th July)

Speaking on ‘Joy of Life, the Brighton-born Boucher reflects: “Joy of Life was the song that first gave me a sense of what the overarching meaning of this coming EP was, so it felt natural to make it the title track. It took quite a long time to come together; I had this line ‘I’m the sheriff of Chickentown’ kicking around for a while, and when I really started thinking about what that meant, I found all these other ways to describe the strange sort of comfort and familiarity that one can find inside a, shall we say, noisy brain - and also some genuine sanctuary of embracing the madness and taking things less seriously. I wanted it to sound like a Nilsson ballad, which lent itself to these stacked vocals and TV orchestra strings. The music and lyrics kind of take flight together; up into this cloud cuckoo land and back down again and I feel this oscillation is all over this EP.”