The transition from supporting cast member to lead player isn’t always a simple step, but San Felu – aka Patrick James Pearson – makes it seem effortless with his debut outing ‘Cape of Good Hope’.
The track – a mesmerising four minute mini-epic full of filmic beauty, Nick Cave-esque scene setting and Patrick’s purring baritone – is the first artist release by San Felu, until now best known for his collaborative production work with rising singer Grace Lightman and acclaimed London band Liu Bei.
Following a year of intense touring as a live member of Transgressive Records band Dry the River, Patrick made the decision to return to his childhood home in Devon to concentrate on his own work, and to finish off ideas he had started on the road.
Inspired by the records he’d played constantly on tour – Sun Kil Moon, Sharon Van Etten, The National – and the Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Yates books he’d read and re-read, San Felu took his blueprints to Middle Farm Studio in Devon and, with the help of producer and engineer Peter Miles (We Are the Ocean, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Dry the River), began to build elegantly surreal musical landscapes in which to place his surreally elegant stories; the result, as heard on ‘Cape of Good Hope’, is utterly enthralling.
The Fat Angel Sings 