Badly Drawn Boy

Badly Drawn Boy

+ Liam Frost

Of course Damon Gough knows how it looks. Ten years since his last studio album (wince). Yes, there was a soundtrack album in that period, and the Mancunian singer-songwriter does view his soundtracks as proper albums. But that was eight years ago, and the film never came out in the UK, so… (shrug).

So, yes, a decade that was, to all intents and purposes, a Badly Drawn Boy-free zone. And what a badly felt loss that was. Here was a DIY trailblazer who managed to simultaneously blaze and shamble into the music world, straight outta Chorlton, with his still-towering debut The Hour of the Bewilderbeast in 2000. A Mercury Prize-winning debut, no less.

Then, to pick some highlights from a repeatedly enthralling purple patch of creativity: the soundtrack to Nick Hornby adaptation About A Boy (from 2002, and 100 per cent A Proper Album);…