Years

The special thrill of hearing an artist grow into their voice is emphatically served by the debut album from Ed Riman, the half-Welsh, half-Indonesian, London-based singer-songwriter and soundscape-ist who records as Hilang Child. 'Years ' radiates a rich sense of self-discovery in its lush, textured layers of sound and feeling. Between its blossoming choruses, multi-tracked harmonies and loose theme of embracing adulthood, it's an epiphanic debut from an artist not just fulfilling his early promise but reaching far beyond it. His harmonies and spacious sounds have drawn comparisons to Fleet Foxes and Sigur Rós, but it was Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys' Smile that first inspired Riman to do "something beautiful and unusual with vocals". Other influences include Imogen Heap, Bat for Lashes, Steve Reich, Paul Thomas Saunders, Hundred Waters and Nobuo Uematsu: feted explorers in sound and mood all. 'Years' is a great leap of faith for Riman. Looking back on his formative recordings as learning experiences, Riman says they taught him to trust his own talent over the lures of a "nice studio" and "fancy gear". "I was always more excited about my home demos, recorded on a laptop, than the final recordings. I learnt that the only way I could convey the sound I wanted was by producing it myself, despite having little knowledge or ability in production."