Credit: Press

MF Tomlinson shares part two of ‘We Are Still Wild Horses’

Thu 19 January 2023 8:19, UK

MF Tomlinson - 'We Are Still Wild Horses (Part II)'

You just don’t see grand experiments happening much in music anymore. I mean, they happen, but they don’t quite seem so impactful, do they? Fucked Up is cooking up interesting things with their new album One Day (having been recorded in the titular span of time), but after progressive rock has shown us that big concepts and long-ass songs are just part of the game, it takes a little bit more effort to stand out these days.

Do you know who understands that? Australian singer-songwriter MF Tomlinson. The folkie artist is in the process of previewing his upcoming album. We Are Still Wild Horses, which features a mammoth 21-minute title track. That’s like Rush levels of song suites going on here. It was so massive that Tomlinson elected to release the song in different chunks, and today, we’re getting part two.

“Finishing this song was the hardest thing I’ve ever done as an artist,” Tomlinson said in a statement. “And yet, it was impossible to resist. It didn’t feel like I had a choice – it just had existed. It draws upon themes of awakening, remembering, escape, release, and transcendence. The verse is murmured reflections, memories flashing before the eyes. The story of the horses is a dream – I can’t visualise it.”

“But then, ultimately, it is catharsis – and I very much had to live all that,” he adds. “I cried a lot, it almost drove me mad. In order to finish, I had to work on it for 24 hours continuously. But in many of those hours, I would find myself in a meditative state. I would get lost in this sonic world – it was a place I could go. It was very healing.”

I have a soft spot for Tomlinson. His 2021 song ‘A Long Day’ was one of the first songs I ever reviewed as a professional writer (along with Lauran Hibberd’s ‘How Am I Still Alive’, which, needless to say, was a jarring but effective one-two punch). Unlike part one of ‘We Are Still Wild Horses’, which set the stage for the jazzy-folk odyssey with a brief under three-minute preview, part two sprawls and unfurls with beauty and specificity. The themes that were previewed in part one are expanded and built upon for part two in a really fascinating fashion.

Along with his backing band (loving referred to as the MFs), Tomlinson has crafted an engrossing listen that is equal parts ambient, experimental, jazz, and acoustic music. According to Tomlinson, the talents of his fellow musicians served as the primary driving force behind what ended up on record. Plus, part two lets us hear Tomlinson’s voice, which has its own interesting gravitas.

“The MFs are my biggest inspiration – I am writing and arranging for them and how they play,” Tomlinson writes. “And I like to think of their performances, the instruments, are telling a story with each note, just as much as the words are. They start out tranquil but uneasy and build from a whisper to a roar – surging forward just like the spirits and the dancing horses.”

“This kind of nonverbal storytelling is why I write songs not poems,” he concludes. “I spent so many hours swimming in these performances which were all recorded in isolation, yet somehow found each other with a little help from the studio. That’s magick. In Part III (yet to come) they take centre stage – so stay tuned.”

Check out part two of ‘We Are Still Wild Horses’ down below. We Are Still Wild Horses is set for a February 17th release.