The Orchestra of Stories

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin… The Orchestra of Stories is the third album by UK singer-songwriter, Tom Hickox, and it’s most ambitious and accomplished record yet.

As if that wasn’t adventurous enough, Hickox produced the album himself, which was a first for him. “It wasn’t initially my intention to produce it myself,” he explains to hi-fi+ in an exclusive interview.

“I co-produced my first one with Colin Elliot, who works with Richard Hawley, and I produced the last one with a bassist friend of mine called Chris Hill.”

He adds: “As I started getting into it, I realised quite soon it was my vision and that I had to do it because of the way it was forming. It’s a massive production and it took a long time to get together – it required lots of different studios, lots of musicians and lots of money!” 

The orchestral arrangements were recorded in London’s AIR Studios, while other parts, including vocals, drums, bass, piano and guitar, were laid down in studios in North and South London and Sheffield. 

“The album took a long time to record, and that was elongated by COVID,” says Hickox – consequently, this is his first album in eight years, but they do say some things are well worth waiting for, and The Orchestra of Stories  is a stunning collection of dramatic and narrative-led songs, with Hickox’s baritone voice accompanied by lavish, cinematic arrangements – the nearest comparison is Scott Walker’s first four solo albums from the ‘60s, which is no coincidence, as Hickox cites Walker as a huge influence.

Opening song, ‘The Clairvoyant’, inspired by a tragic tale of a man in the US, who was hustled out of his entire life savings and house by a fraudulent psychic, is the perfect scene setter – Mariachi brass gives way to a piano and Hickox’s deep and rich croon, before a moody string arrangement creeps in and then unfolds. The effect is startling and unsettling – a very powerful start to the record.

The gorgeous ‘Chalk Giants’ has a lighter touch, with acoustic guitar, stately strings and pastoral horns – the song finds Hickox on a bucolic English road trip, searching for greater meaning in life. 

The serene mood doesn’t last for long, though…  ‘Chalk Giants’ is followed by the dark, brooding and satirical ‘Game Show,’ with its sleazy, James Bond horns, filmic strings and news audio clips recorded by CNN’s Clarissa Ward, BBC’s Nick Beake and the actor, Rory Kinnear.

For the lyrics, Hickox took inspiration from the Cambridge Analytica and Edward Snowden personal data scandals. Romantic obsession is the theme of ‘Roy and Eve’, which, which its brass and swelling strings, has a touch of some of The Divine Comedy’s more grandiose moments about it, and draws on a true story from Hickox’s own family – “the affair of correspondence” between his grandmother, Eve Sheldon-Williams, and the painter Roy Turner-Durrant. 

On haunting album closer, ‘The Port Quin Fishing Disaster,’ we are transported to a small Cornish fishing village, where a tragedy strikes during a raging storm, while in the ‘The Failed Assassination of Fidel Castro’, Hickox plays the part of Marita Lorenz, who was tasked with seducing and poisoning the Cuban revolutionary but ended up becoming his lover. 

These stories are a gift for a talented and inventive singer-songwriter like Hickox, who has a brilliant eye – and ear – for taking curious tales and turning them into fully-realised and often epic compositions.

He has also included a cover version – his own take on The Waterboys’ ‘The Whole of the Moon’, a song whose imagery he’s always loved. He does it justice, stripping it back, and adding layers of tape-delayed guitars. 

The Orchestra of Stories is a very special record – sometimes magical, sometimes disturbing and sometimes beautiful, but always intriguing and wonderfully-sounding. 

These expertly-crafted and superbly-arranged songs – and the stories they are based on – deserve to be heard by a much wider audience. Let’s hope someone can orchestrate that. 

Back to Music