Mark William Lewis

21+ event w/ valid ID at Soda Bar - San Diego.

Mark William Lewis is an artist that exists between the cracks. He eschews easy genre categorisation, plays with the traditional conventions of a songwriter, and creates music that is poetically sharp, visually vivid, yet texturally opaque. Writing songs that explore the intersection between intimacy and alienation, connection and disconnection, he is a singular and bold voice operating in a distinctly unique yet blurry space. “For me, a song really starts to take shape when it has its own sense of place, and the words and music come naturally,” he says. “Because they need to describe that place and whatever interpersonal situation is going on there.”
Words, images and places are crucial to this record, the second LP from the London artist after 2023’s acclaimed Living. Every song on this innovative and genuinely original album is deeply rooted in images of specific places: houses, rooms, beds, parties, or locations across London. “I think of this album as something very thickly layered, like an impasto painting or a collage,” explains Lewis. “It was recorded in various places across London and it links to the idea of the songs having different locations and being quite collaged with different sounds and textures from different studios and rooms.”

The result is a record that sounds like very little else from a truly exceptional new voice in contemporary music. While the spirit of The Durutti Column might be felt rippling through Lewis’ liquid guitar work from time to time, what becomes clear on this is just what a unique space he has carved out to operate in. Lewis is able to glide between introspective poignancy and expansive openness with the same grace and agility that he moves from musical moments that are propulsive and full of momentum to those that are slow, atmospheric, and almost ambient-like. His ability to blend meticulous songcraft with carefully layered, and endlessly revealing, textures is ceaselessly stunning. As is Lewis’ ability to play with, and flip, musical norms and conventions. While much of his music is constructed of voice, guitar and harmonica, the typical associations that come with that combination come unmoored here. Inspired by Augustus Pablo’s use of melodica on his pioneering dub records, Lewis puts various effects on his harmonica, which creates a heavily textured, almost gaseous presence that floats around his rich resonant vocals and his deft yet dexterous guitar work on both acoustic and electric.

A song like the sublime ‘Tomorrow Is Perfect’ is a beautiful example of how Lewis has harnessed the essence of environment and physical locations and turned them into arrestingly individual pieces of work.  “I can visualise every image in those lyrics,” Lewis explains. “It’s like a film, set in various locations near where I live on the river in Deptford, south east London.” The song – a tender yet piercing, sweet yet bruising piece of deeply atmospheric alt-rock that unfurls with hypnotic grace – in many ways embodies Lewis’ unique approach to lyric writing. With references to burning skies, bleeding gums, and storms, these words all bring up stark, striking and lucid images that remain open to interpretation. “In that song, I really felt like I was accessing that point with words where they are less attached to meaning,” he says. “And become like any other material – such as colour or texture or harmony.”
As someone who grew up equally exploring music, art, writing and performance, this project is about furthering the erosion of boundaries. “I think my songwriting has gotten better as I’ve stopped thinking about the distinction between poetry and music,” he says. “Writing is just writing whether I’ve got a guitar with me or not.”

And so a song like ‘Seventeen’, a melodic, infectious and almost breezy bit of folk-tinged rock that is as sweet as it is quietly devastating, sits as a perfect example. …