After releasing a couple singles — March's "Romance with a Memory" and April's "Fruit" — the xx's Oliver Sim has announced his debut solo album. Hideous Bastard is arriving September 9 on Young, and Sim has celebrated the announcement by sharing a video for the album's quasi-title track.
Produced by Jamie xx, Hideous Bastard was inspired by Sim's love of horror movies and "[unpacks] themes of shame, fear, and masculinity."
New single "Hideous" features guest vocals from Bronski Beat's Jimmy Somerville, who Sim calls his "guardian angel." The song also sees Sim share that he's been living with HIV since the age of 17. In a press release about the album, Sim said:
I hear a lot of the music as joyous, because the experience of writing and recording it has been the complete opposite of what fear and shame have been for me. Two thirds in, having a good idea of what the record was about, I realized I'd been circling around one of the things that has probably caused me the most fear and shame. My HIV status. I've been living with HIV since I was 17 and it's played with how I've felt towards myself, and how I've assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life.
"Hideous" comes attached to a video directed by Yann Gonzalez, who has also collaborated with Sim on a forthcoming queer horror short film of the same name that premiered yesterday at the Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival.
Check out the video for "Hideous" and the Hideous Bastard tracklist below.
Hideous Bastard:
1. Hideous
2. Romance with a Memory
3. Sensitive Child
4. Never Here
5. Unreliable Narrator
6. Saccharine
7. Confident Man
8. GMT
9. Fruit
10. Run The Credits
Pre-order Hideous Bastard.
Produced by Jamie xx, Hideous Bastard was inspired by Sim's love of horror movies and "[unpacks] themes of shame, fear, and masculinity."
New single "Hideous" features guest vocals from Bronski Beat's Jimmy Somerville, who Sim calls his "guardian angel." The song also sees Sim share that he's been living with HIV since the age of 17. In a press release about the album, Sim said:
I hear a lot of the music as joyous, because the experience of writing and recording it has been the complete opposite of what fear and shame have been for me. Two thirds in, having a good idea of what the record was about, I realized I'd been circling around one of the things that has probably caused me the most fear and shame. My HIV status. I've been living with HIV since I was 17 and it's played with how I've felt towards myself, and how I've assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life.
"Hideous" comes attached to a video directed by Yann Gonzalez, who has also collaborated with Sim on a forthcoming queer horror short film of the same name that premiered yesterday at the Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival.
Check out the video for "Hideous" and the Hideous Bastard tracklist below.
Hideous Bastard:
1. Hideous
2. Romance with a Memory
3. Sensitive Child
4. Never Here
5. Unreliable Narrator
6. Saccharine
7. Confident Man
8. GMT
9. Fruit
10. Run The Credits
Pre-order Hideous Bastard.
