Hit the North: Where it's Zak

Zak Whitefield’s To Anywhere EP sounds, at first, like it could slip onto the playlist of a major retailer. Polished, sun-lit and alluringly HD, it has the self-assurance of something with a massive audience in its sights. Add the big, confident voice, and Whitefield’s gift for a certain kind of cliff-top chorus, and there are few artists around these parts who look a safer commercial bet.

But don’t worry, there are positives too. These are early days for the Belfast man. There’s a lived-in sensibility that augurs well for the long-term. Zak’s championing of hope and optimism is all the more winning because there are genuine shadows in the periphery of his vision. As he progresses as a songwriter this tension between light and shade promises to make for an interesting dynamic.

Tony Wright has been working on his debut album as Verse Chorus Verse for long enough now that memories of him playing in ASIWYFA are surely starting to dim. With the record out, the distance between his noisenik (lyric-less) past, and his tuneful (lyric-heavy) present is vast enough to make it seem almost ridiculous that the same guy could be involved with both.

There’s little arch or mannered here. In fact, there are actually moments when it looks to be turning a little R**gle T**gle, and the temptation is to cover your eyes and pray it’s going to avoid the onrushing brick wall. Which it invariably does – mainly due to the sheer, barreling sincerity of Tony’s ambition and his continued siding with the good guys.

If there’s an aspirational quality to Wright and Whitefield’s music that brings to mind the hoary old notion of the star-gazing gutter-dweller, Bee Mick See provides a more face-down perspective. Over recent times local musicians have found a handy (both profilelifting and commercial) outlet as the backing to any number of adverts encouraging tourists to come here and spend some coin.

Now when we see images of the Causeway, or the Cranes, or that rope bridge, chances are they're bedded by a caffeinated key-change from one of the home squad. Given his penchant for off-colour jokes, candid confessionals, and less than rosy depictions of day-today life in his hometown, I’m not sure Belfast trickster/ rapper Bee Mick See is expecting a phone call any time soon.

The last couple of years have been punctuated by intermittent missives from his curious world, covering topics like the need to cheer up (‘Who Likes Laughing?’), how much of a bummer a sore throat is (‘Laryngitis’) and, time and again, (in fact time, time and time and again), the diabolical condition of his love life (‘Hey Girl’, ‘Single’).

You all know what kind of man it takes to play a fool, and in the midst of this unfolding calamity, there’s a powerful smart sensibility at play. New single ‘Awkward’ is the first song from forthcoming album, The Belfast Yank. And while he may never be asked to help sell the place, given how the last 18 months of life here have had a distinct cartoon-rapper feel to them, I’ve a suspicion that, all taken together, the Buckfast-soaked wonderland of his back-catalogue is starting to ring weirdly true.

Gulp.