Insight Review: Honeyruin, ‘Kalopsia’ (Lush Selects, 2017)

Honeyruin’s recent album Kalopsia (available here and here) is an incredible journey into urban darkness, serene electronica and sample-driven ambient beauty…

We here at Insight Music love press-shy Irish producer Honeyruin, and have followed his music for a long time. Lucky for us, then, that Mr ‘Ruin (aka Belfast’s Andrew Wightman) has gone from strength to strength in terms of the depth, sophistication and sheer listenability of his music.

And nothing displays this more than his recent release ‘Kalopsia’ (released last month via Lush Selects). The seven tracks included here are a technical tour-de-force, but they’re much more than that. They are a journey into dark, rain-washed nocturnal backstreets; smokey, static-filled dream-sequences; pleasant, sunlit ambient soundscapes where real life simply melts away. From the opening notes of ‘Codeine’, through the warm vocal haziness of ‘I’ll Follow You Into The End’, to the deep, philosophical, True-Detective-driven vibes of ‘You Forgot Me So Easily’ and beyond (culminating in the track ‘Home’ – a tremendous, crackle-fuelled assault on the senses), this is one of those albums that transcends mere music and assumes an existential quality, so that if you listen with your eyes closed you will be transported to other places, times, worlds.

Kalopsia represents the apex of an artist whose natural disinclination towards self-publicity prevents him from reaching the sort of audience he deserves. Trust us, however; at this point Honeyruin deserves to be huge. We here at Insight sincerely hope that will happen one day. For now, we will enjoy the awesome scale of ‘Kalopsia’ and suggest that you do, too…

Kalopsia is out now on Lush Selects.