With “Hideous Bastard”, Briton Oliver Sim wanted to see what he was capable of artistically without his two acolytes and friends. A cathartic album in which he shares his doubts and makes a revelation.
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Let’s say it right away, the first piece ofhideous bastard, ends with a shocking revelation. Oliver Sim, one of the voices of the British group The XX accompanied on this confessional title by the icon Jimmy Somerville, explains that he has been HIV positive since the age of 17. A release for the 33-year-old singer and bassist who is embarking on a solo career: “I figured I could just throw this out in front of the world and it would be over, it wouldn’t be my secret anymore. It’s much easier to be honest in a song than in a conversation.”
This sentence, delivered with emotion but simplicity, drives the album into an indescribable force. We knew his magnetic voice within The XX, Oliver Sim is revealed in majesty. Even if the path to this first solo album was not easy: “It was quite difficult, just because I hadn’t anticipated it. I love being a member of The XX, I’m in one of my favorite bands with my two best friends and not the other. If I am not a third of The XX, what am I? How do I sound, what do I have to say?”
Many artists say it, we do not believe them all: in Hideous Bastard, the songs are listened to as if their author had made each one a means of getting better. “I write about fear and shame, not to overwhelm me or make me feel even worse, but precisely to free myself from it”, says Oliver Sim.
“This album is kind of like that, I’m going to throw out everything that makes me feel awful, with the hope that I can take a step back and that I’m not.”
Far from the media and planetary fury resulting from three very noticed albums with The XX, this time alone seemed necessary to Oliver Sim. But the reunion with Jamie XX and Romy Madley-Croft, who is also preparing an album, seems close: “I can’t wait to see where the three of us will meet. Nothing is recorded yet, but we are spending more and more time talking about it. We are very excited about each other.” Solitude, the best way back to the collective.