31-05-2025, 18:30
Unlikely as it may seem, Nad Sylvan’s newly released track “Monumentata” is my pick for this week. The song speaks of loss and memories – the death of his father, and the fact that no matter what age you are, when both parents have gone, it leaves you a little adrift in the world, even when, as in this case, the relationship was far from perfect. He’s looking back here and paying what homage he realistically can. And he is feeling a sense of his own mortality.
Sylvan’s birth name is Hugh Erik Stewart – his father was Hugh Wright Stewart, and he was a big tennis star in his heyday, hence the racket imagery throughout the video. What interests me especially is that this is an artist wearing their heart on their sleeve – showing a vulnerability. The beings that we are respond well to this kind of disclosure – this show of humanity – we feel we can relate, and I don’t find any pretense which is why it strikes such a chord. He tells us, reading between the lines, that having a sports star father while he was a more artistically inclined child, might have been a bit of a challenge for the parent, or that the child felt it that way - it's complicated, as are many family relationships and since the father lived to 96, he would have been very much of a certain era - that is the inference. The song is a sort of testament or monument - a way for him to process this event. Stewart Snr was half Hungarian which is where ‘tata’ comes in – it’s a diminutive of the word for father. Monumentata is an invention and is the title of his new album which will be out soonish – he says it’s personal this time - real, and that he has abandoned the somewhat gothic persona he had adopted for previous releases. He's getting on a bit and his voice is a little 'choked', for want of a better description but there's still something endearing happening, IMHO, and I will give it a whirl when it launches.
Sylvan’s birth name is Hugh Erik Stewart – his father was Hugh Wright Stewart, and he was a big tennis star in his heyday, hence the racket imagery throughout the video. What interests me especially is that this is an artist wearing their heart on their sleeve – showing a vulnerability. The beings that we are respond well to this kind of disclosure – this show of humanity – we feel we can relate, and I don’t find any pretense which is why it strikes such a chord. He tells us, reading between the lines, that having a sports star father while he was a more artistically inclined child, might have been a bit of a challenge for the parent, or that the child felt it that way - it's complicated, as are many family relationships and since the father lived to 96, he would have been very much of a certain era - that is the inference. The song is a sort of testament or monument - a way for him to process this event. Stewart Snr was half Hungarian which is where ‘tata’ comes in – it’s a diminutive of the word for father. Monumentata is an invention and is the title of his new album which will be out soonish – he says it’s personal this time - real, and that he has abandoned the somewhat gothic persona he had adopted for previous releases. He's getting on a bit and his voice is a little 'choked', for want of a better description but there's still something endearing happening, IMHO, and I will give it a whirl when it launches.
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson