Cobbler is a Sheffield-based electronic musician and producer who has just come to my attention through the release of his latest album No One Knows The Question.
By Graeme Smith
Though new to us, Cobbler has already got an impressive CV when it comes to music. Alongside his four solo albums, he also performs with poet Luke Wright as The People Who Run The Country, and with singer songwriter Michael Vickers under the name Dogs Don’t Deal. He’s also released a dance track Under My Skin with singer Nathalie Miranda.
His fourth album No One Knows The Question consists of ten recently-penned tracks that showcase how his music has matured. In the background of all of them is a breakdown of a long-term friendship and a bout of wanderlust that threatened to take him away from his Yorkshire home.
Cobbler has a unique way of bringing that home to life with his music, rendering the city of Sheffield musically, touching on topics as diverse as religion, drugs, drinking culture and politics. It’s just about the right mix of the personal and the outward-facing that makes for a compelling collection.
Opening things is the discordant strings of I Know Where God Is. From the sound of an orchestra tuning up, to captured audio of a rousing televangelist-style speech, we eventually arrive at some distorted vocals in an eclectic intro that keeps you guessing what will come next.
What does come next is the light yet wistful indie pop Wanderlust, and from there, we are treated to a mix of dark lo-fi, soaring cinematic pop and everything in between. We get touches of hip-hop, witch house, fuzzy dream pop, psych rock, and, just when we thought we’d had it all, Vincent Vega wraps things up with a severe and hypnotic odyssey into the haunting world of a British weekend night out.
There aren’t many doing what Cobbler is doing in the world of music at the moment, and his new album proves to be a complete breathe of fresh air. It’s further proof of just what a hotbed of talent Sheffield (and, of course, Yorkshire) has always been.
You can check out No One Knows The Question below.
