MT Hadley - Empty

Frank Ocean uses his very occasional ‘Blonded’ Beats 1 radio show to shine a light on the underground music flaring on his deeply-attuned radar. On one of his shows back in 2017, he spun M. T. Hadley’s ‘Janet’, a heartbreaking ode to the singer’s mother who passed away earlier in the decade. Two years on and the same track sits as a centrepiece on debut album ‘Empty’ and it still packs a punch.

This is music channelled from a tortured soul, read any of the lyrics here in isolation and they paint a pretty bleak scene - “you will feel nothing but heartache,” he informs the listener on ‘Rattle’ in his soulful falsetto, he interrogates an uncommunicative lover on ‘Read Receipt’ (“how can you not be there, it’s a mobile phone”), and ’First Floor’ documents a failed suicide attempt (“The neighbours complain of a nuisance”). It’s so bleak in fact, that you start to question whether he’s singing with his tongue a little clasped in cheek at times; especially as the latter’s premise is lifted from a Chris Morris sketch.