The 'wildcard' EP by Euan Blackman
Review
Euan Blackman hits 2026 running today with the release of his latest EP ‘wildcard'.
Comprising five tracks, "jane"& "mine" plus three you'll already know as they've been released as singles in their own right, "better", "forgive" and "girl" , this EP sees him consolidate modes of working which obviously suit him: following previous EPs such as ‘Thunderstorms' and ‘Rent Free on My Brain' the pattern is to bring out several singles followed by the parent collection featuring a couple of newbies. Other characteristics evolve as his music does: the wispy vocals & blurred artworks are now succeeded by an aversion to upper case & a favouring of single word titles. It certainly helps him build strong & identifiable artistic branding.
That's all fine of course but it's peripheral to the main point which is the music. As I've made clear in addressing the three singles, this is a definite new phase for Euan & there is equally clearly a coherence within the five songs.
When someone comes to write his musical biography, there is already a compelling argument for stating that after that initial career phase marked by those elusive sleeve images of him and a parallel sound where his voice was partially hidden behind veils of process amid mists & drizzles of arrangements, at this point he's emerging into clearer view. I have no idea as to how much confidence plays in this development and it would be impertinent to load him with my speculations, but you'd be a bit lacking in observational skills not to have noted a paradigm shift.
That the closing track "mine" (which is qualified as "cassette version") should attract the description "raw" shows how far he's come. One might categorise the general change in terms of stripping back, but I prefer to consider the production approach: there is much less of the previous processing & blending and a shift into more identifiable and rootsy instrumentation which at the same time evidence his own considerable skills in the playing of guitar, banjo, harmonica etc. This fits snugly with name checks for Gram Parsons and Lucinda Williams which simply would have seemed bizarre a couple of years ago with the tracks he produced then.
Lyrically, Euan is moving into the concrete of emotional experiences ("jane" is a post break-up song) and leaving behind the abstractions he used to deal with. To me, this evolution makes total sense when coupled with the sonic developments.
Not that I'm expressing any sort of preference here: the older songs worked just fine in their way as do these. Both sorts rang true and you can't ask for anything better. However being a single dimensional artist isn't a great plan and continuing further in the same original vein would devalue what went before & deteriorate into a spiral of diminishing returns. I salute the changes he's made & hope they open up new audiences for Euan.
Talking of which, he's off on a national tour: you can catch him at the Lexington in London on January 28th, both B:eats in Birmingham and Gullivers in Manchester on 3rd February and the Philharmonic Music Room (with the Philharmonic Youth Orchestra) in Liverpool on March 29th.
