Sounding like Sleaford Mods on a mind-melting isolation acid trip, “From The Ground Up” finds Robinson matching kitchen sink lyrical quips with hypnotic electronic loops and experimental vocal styles that mark a prominent shift in sound for the Manchester collective.
Marking a year since lockdown began with a track that’s positively crawling up the walls, Ben Robinson adds a trippy new addition to the band’s growing back catalogue. The track is taken from a forthcoming lockdown mixtape entitled: ‘Golden Dirt’, a collaborative effort with San Francisco-based producer The Olchemist, set for release in the coming months.
With lyrics lost in lurid daydreams of doomscrolling the Manchester Evening News and thoughts of chasing white rabbits to no real gain, it’s a track that expresses the frustration and boredom of lockdown with psychedelic imagination and surreal humour. Speaking about the track’s core themes, Robinson says:
“‘Golden Dirt, champions of the hurt’ was a lyric from a track I did a while ago that didn’t get finished, it seemed to define the sentiment I feel about all the people I love and what is true of these times. We are all champions, we are all hurt, and as the saying goes ‘no mud no lotus’… from s**t comes beautiful flowers.That’s where we are all going next so stay positive, the coming years are going to be like nothing we have ever known.”
Sending the track to San Francisco for a West Coast touch, “From The Ground Up” was given its final mix by The Olchemist (aka Oliver Linton Brown).
The track arrives hot-on-the-heels of Hello Cosmos’ acclaimed 2021 album ‘Dream Harder’. Yet unlike their debut release, a deeply collaborative effort which featured contributions from over 20 artists, “From The Ground Up” is a considerably more pared-back creative effort. Entirely written and recorded at a makeshift studio at his home in Manchester, it’s the first of a batch of songs the frontman wrote alone during a series of late-night sessions over the course of the last 365 days. Unable to record live with his brother Simon (as Hello Cosmos would under normal circumstances), Robinson reached out to acclaimed producer and friend The Olchemist in an attempt to fill the void left by his sibling’s absence. Exchanging ideas and sounds, while experimenting further with electronics, synths and samples; the pairing hit upon an entirely different kind of Hello Cosmos record.
Providing a moment to reflect on a year like no other, while offering a first glimpse at a new body of work, “From The Ground Up” is streaming on Bandcamp here: https://hello-cosmos.bandcamp.
