Heartbreak and hope documented in quarantine
Label:
Released: 14th December 2020
Rating: 3.5/5
Photo credit: Thomas Headon on SoundCloud
Purely acoustic EP, ‘room 1602’ came about whilst 20-year-old Thomas Headon was trapped within the same four walls of a quarantine hotel in Perth, Australia, for 2 weeks last month, and documents feelings of hope, heartbreak and loss.
The four-track collection of mellow songs opens with ‘girl in my dreams’ as Headon deeply inhales, before a three-chord progression is plucked on an acoustic guitar, and he begins to daydream about how he is “looking for the girl in [his] dreams, [who] was so good to be with”. The guitar plucking builds with every verse, from a piano playing along with the melody, to what sound like strings, offering an atmospheric and heart-achingly hopeful introduction to the fifteen-minute assemblage. The other instruments fade out, leaving the faint vibration of the guitar, and Headon’s whispering words soften so much, they give the illusion that they will crack at any minute, his heart like a delicate glass on stone, as he croons, “I hope that she knows I’m talking to her when I say that I miss her.”
The tone shifts to the painfully honest track, ten more times, a song that has been hanging around on YouTube for over a year now, in which Headon trills, “ten more times and I’ll be fine.” Here, Headon appears to be at his most vulnerable, and it is clear why his army of adolescent fans resonate so closely with this song.
The mundane realism (“I’d stay til midnight if you’d let me, we’ll put on new girl until we fall asleep cause there’s nowhere to be”) and hopeful longing of third track, sunset, perfectly captures the desperation that is young, teenage love, with lyrics such as the line, “cause the sunset’s coming and I don’t want you to leave”. The track feels nostalgic, and in true Disco Tony (the name that more completist Headon fans know him as) style, presents the desire to be loved by ones perception of the perfect partner.
The surprise EP closes on arguably the most highly anticipated of all of singer-songwriter, Thomas Headon’s previously unreleased discography – carry on. Just like ten more times, this is a track that fans have eagerly been waiting to be officially released, ever since Headon posted a video of him muttering the words, minutes after it was penned, on his YouTube channel, and it is crystal clear why: it is a hug in song form, a comfort from everything going on in the world around those misunderstood teens, trying to find their place among it all. And in times like 2020, it is exactly what all of us need.
KATIE HILLIER