Hyde Park, otherwise known as Nick Stevens, released a somber yet soothing new single titled “The Insomniac’s Lament.” Expressing his late-night feelings of longing, regret, and of course, insomnia.
The dream-like new single was written when the artist was suffering through a bout of writer's block and stayed up until 3:00 in the morning trying to get a coherent verse down for a song.
He started to fall asleep and saw a shadow moving on the wall, which scared the hell out of him. Stevens says this is when a lightbulb moment happened in his mind, thinking, "oh, the shadow on the wall is moving.”.
In the next ten minutes, he wrote the lyrics to this song about being kept awake after a fight, and all it would take to fall asleep is telling your partner, "you were right."
Stevens says, “It was produced to sound dreamlike, overwhelming, and a bit nightmarish, hence the autotune on the vocals, all at the same time.” Which makes sense with the balance of classical-sounding instruments and futuristic vocals.
This single comes ahead of Hyde Park's debut EP. Stevens says, “[The EP] is perhaps arriving at the best possible time. In a world where the pandemic has tested even the strongest relationships, ‘This is Just a Simple Song’ offers a looking glass for anyone seeking to make sense of the most turbulent times in their lives and learn how to adjust accordingly.”
Although this is Hyde Park’s debut EP, it is not the first musical endeavor for the artist behind the name. Stevens’ career began early; he released his first EP, Lost and Found (2009), when he was a sophomore at the University of Connecticut.
Since then, he’s performed and recorded as both a solo artist and as a member of the indie-rock collective The Condescending Foxes.
Finding himself under the stage name of Hyde Park, Stevens draws from a diverse set of influences such as David Gray, Belle and Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields, and Peter Gabriel to create a seamless blend of folk, pop, and electronica paired with a concise, heartfelt lyrical style.
By: Zac Strater