“Check out this stylish black and white picture of me, I look fucking great don’t I!! Yeah, I do!! That’s a Fender Jagstang I’m playing, possibly the coolest looking guitar in the world, it was designed by Kurt Cobain, and that means that I am as cool as Kurt, but he shot himself when he was 27, and I didn’t…,” And there’s more…

“I was born in 1979 in the beautiful county of Essex, I learnt to play guitar during my teenage years, and was shit hot! Then whilst at university I bought an electric guitar and small practice amp and got even better!!! Eventually I left university and formed a band called Cheese Factory, we played together for 2 years. It was one hell of a ride, let me tell you, our first gig was at The Twist in Colchester and our last gig was in The Dublin Castle in Camden. That should give you some idea of just how amazing our career as a band was, they don’t let just any old shit play The Dublin Castle, you have to email them and say you’ll guarantee people through the door, none of that giving them a CD rubbish!!”Anyway, in 2003 all that came to an end and I started doing my own thing, and by going through the Music and Photos section of www.Aidy.com you can probably piece the rest of my musical history together.”

“When I’m not playing music I enjoy socialising with chums, fine wines and other luxuries that my musical success affords me.”

Well, that’s Adrian Killens’ (Aidy to his friends) brief description of himself, recounted with humility and humour. On trying to grab some images from the photo page on his website, Microsoft kept telling me that the relevant page had to be closed - many times. So Aidy is a strange one, a maverick, but what about his music?

SELECTED DEMOS 2002-2009 is something of a revelation. ‘Prettyish’ opens the collection with a nicely strummed intro that winds its way through the whole song. Vocally, Aidy has a young, rather sweet voice. The song is strongly melodically and lyrically, while production is surprisingly good. A dark and reflective start to the album. ‘22′ is an altogether rockier affair with blanket electronic guitar riffs dominating with Aidy’s voice just managing to show through the dirty haze. Another powerful melody drives the song and I’m beginning to think that Aidy is a bit more serious about his music than he lets on… both songs so far are excellent. ‘Bored’  changes tack again with a highly rhythmic, punkish narrative about a life-less-exciting. That electric guitar returns blanket-style for the choruses while melody again powers it along. ‘It’s Only A Drink’  repeats the dose but adds retro style vocal harmonies to the mix to spice things up. It’s a driving pop-rocker that I cannot fault.

‘Edinburgh’ goes contemplative and dark with a slow, steadily pumping rhythm and murky vocal. Light and dark arrives with the slow-moving ‘Seattle’s Filled With Stars’ which reveals a further interesting sonic change. Bright keyboard notes appear around the middle-eight together with the most subtle of backing vocals and sighing country style guitar riffs. It’s back to Europe with the bouncy pop tones of ‘Amsterdam’ but the lighter sound contrasts quite sharply with the more serious lyrical tone. ‘Arogillian’s Gone’ has a strong folk vibe as it wistfully meanders along. ‘Is This The End?’ completes the album on a sultry, reflective note with its monotone vibe relieved by flashes of climbing keyboard notes. It’s a lovely song.

I’ve heard many ‘demo’ song collections in my time but this one is different in that the songs are consistantly good and hang together really well, i.e. this could be a conventional album. Killen may be unconventional (weird even) and on the fringes of a difficult music industry, but this demo song collection proves that he is more talented than some artists I could mention who are chart toppers. I wish him luck, he deserves it.

4/5