As much word-smith as musical artist, Daniel Hartley reminds us of the power of lyrics. With songs that fuse the poetic with the everyday, he sings of moments: lovers kissing in sea-bound storms; a temptress in a blue kimono screaming with her eyes; he himself standing beneath a window behind which a woman plays piano in the dusty gloom. An English Literature student at Cardiff University, it was perhaps inevitable that Hartley would explore such tragic and romantic ideas.
But if the lyrics are a form of poetry, the guitar playing is far from rarefied; simple and rustic, it roots the songs in an inventive usage of common chord progressions, thus echoing a recurrent theme in Hartley's project: to render familiar objects and feelings strange. All of which is bound together by a voice at once soulful and honest.
Daniel Hartley is based in Tamworth. Here, he began playing small gigs in 2002 as part of a duo with Simon Key (now the drummer of the great Carousel Circus). He and Key recorded two albums together. It was only in 2005 that Hartley went solo, playing gigs in both Tamworth and Cardiff, and recording his first solo project, Siren Calls, during the summer of that year. He has since spent a year teaching English in France and has used that time away to write material which will soon become a much-awaited new album.
Layout Created at KillerKiwi.net
View Dan Hartley's EPK
