June 29, 2005

Micah P Hinson : The Baby And The Satellite Sketchbook

Old-before-his-years Texan prodigy’s musical baby pictures

6 / 10 It’s the same old story: boy meets girl. Girl turns out to be former Vogue cover model and widow of semi-famous rock star. Girl introduces boy to hard drugs. Boy’s Christian family disown him. Boy is sent to prison for forging prescriptions. Yes, 23-year-old Texan Micah Prendergast Hinson has had an eventful life. Upon release from jail in 2001, for example, he was homeless and destitute. Scraping together some borrowed instruments, he somehow managed to write and record 30 songs, some of which were released on last year’s excellent country-noir debut album, ‘Micah P Hinson And The Gospel Of Progress’.

Before that, though, were the eight tracks which make up ‘The Baby And The Satellite Sketchbook’. Written and recorded on a broken four-track while the 19-year-old Hinson was trying to hold down a telemarketing job, they’re remarkable sketches of a talent that would be more fully realised with ‘The Gospel…’ . As doodles go, though, these are remarkably accomplished: the eggshell-fragile likes of ‘The Dreams You Left Behind’ and ‘The Last Charge Of Lt Paul’ are hauntingly distant and ethereal, like a long and involved dream.

It’s not all as compelling, admittedly, but this is a songwriter who’s already so mature, you can only imagine what stories he’ll have to tell when he’s 40.

Michael Lane

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