Nick Hudson and the Academy of Sun – My Antique Son

Nick Hudson’s audial explorations over the past few years have garnered him an impressive collection of admirers, from Meredith Monk to Current 93’s David Tibet, who aptly adds a foreword to this album that takes his own love of esoteric meanderings and applies it to a pop framework, creating an intricate tapestry that is hauntingly ethereal yet approachable enough to rope in even those who may be otherwise offput by its lofty aspirations.

Hudson’s often dramatic intonations are weaved around layers of organ, piano and guitar in a series of compositions that range from the short and sweet to the grandiose, but retained throughout is a sense of wonder, a stream of kaleidoscopic melodies and memories lost in a world of psychotropic country gardens and misty new-age spiritualism. It’s endlessly involving, expansive enough to allow the mind to wander wherever the music wishes to take it but with enough density for each listen to provide a new attraction.