The Faintest Idea

When most people look at an acoustic guitar, they see exactly that - a wooden box with strings. As one of the pioneers of the modern fingerstyle sound, however, Jon Gomm has a rare gift for turning one instrument into what feels like an entire orchestra... The Blackpool-born singer-songwriter's 2003 home-recorded debut, Hypertension, was nothing short of a musical revelation: drumming beats, tapping chords and striking harmonics on his acoustic underneath that warm, soulful voice. Things changed for Jon when landmark single Passionflower racked up millions of views on YouTube and other media platforms in 2012 - with British legend Stephen Fry describing him on mainstream television as someone "playing the guitar in a way I'd never seen it played before" and "an all-round genius". Perhaps one of the greatest surprises with the upcoming new album 'The Faintest Idea' is how it contrasts the incredible human warmth of Gomm's acoustic articulation with more icy affairs, thanks to the synth parts and production work from Australian musician Andy Sorenson. Instead of a war between man and machine, the collaboration delicately cross-pollinates simple honesty with more forward-thinking atmospheres, in ways that add rather than subtract from one another.