Album: David Holmes - Blind on a Galloping Horse

It’s always encouraging to a have a musical rallying call in times of political strife. A song for a better future to encourage those on the right side of history not just to march but to dance as well.

As Emma Goldman, the Russian-born anarchist of a century or so ago, once said: “A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having”, and this is clearly a view shared by Belfast DJ and producer David Holmes. For Blind on a Galloping Horse is no po-faced, muscular call to burn everything down. Instead, it is a compassionate song of hope that praises those “dreamers, misfits, radicals and outcasts” who give us hope for a better future. Yet, it still most definitely points the finger at the grifters who have done their best to trash the UK with lies and wilful stupidity to enrich themselves and leave the rest of us high and dry.

While previous outings by David Holmes have been pretty much apolitical, they have also been largely instrumental with dissected and distorted spoken samples or with the occasional guest vocalist. Blind on a Galloping Horse not only features the sweet vocals of Raven Violet on all but two tracks, but the lyrics are also much more than empty sloganeering.

“Hope is the Last Thing to Die” is most definitely a hymn for a better world with a groove aimed firmly at making hips swing, while “Love in the Upside Down” is a euphoric trip with echoes of the Junior Boys Own sound of the early 90s. “Necessary Genius” is something of a centrepiece for the album and features a roll call of many of the great people that give our lives colour, from John Coltrane and Nina Simone to Terry Hall and Sinead O’Connor. However, tunes like “Emotionally Clear” and “Tyranny of the Talentless” make it clear that there are also plenty of people that deserve no such praise – quite the opposite in fact.

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