It would make a good parlour game to ask people to guess where this singer comes from. His phrasing and accent is so curious that this would be a challenge to even the most expert of linguists.
It turns out that he is a young man from the West Country who possesses a voice that has been diplomatically described as "idiosyncratic". I confess that on first listen, his quirky baritone put me in mind of Vic Reeves' imitation of working men's club singers.
Tuplin's delivery on these five songs is like that of a foreigner at pains to ensure his pronunciation is as precise as possible. Each word is sung in a controlled, non naturalistic manner.
This results in an air of exaggerated, and faintly comical, pomposity so that on Kathleen he manages to find melodrama in banal lines like "Generally speaking I can't complain" or "Do you want some chewing gum?"
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The more poetic Time's Essence is weighed down with a series of clever but contrived rhymes ("morning.... yawning ...... born in" / "queuing .... brewing .... pursuing")
When he sings "You don't love me anyone" on The Morning Sun it is like he is making a solemn proclamation to be minuted at an official meeting.
The unwitting effect of all this on yours truly is to give a distancing effect to lyrics he says were written "to share real experiences and emotions that people can identify with".
Jeremy Tuplin's website
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