Love & Anxiety by Man at Sea

"It's a terrible thing when you know it's the end"

Man at Sea returns with his most brutally honest record to date, 'Love & Anxiety': three hauntingly beautiful piano/string based songs which capture a songwriter dealing with existential angst and coming to terms with the break up of a long term, very loving relationship. The EP is nothing less than an attempt to capture, in sound, the feeling of how anxiety can affect a relationship and how we sometimes have to break free from things in order to grow.

Recorded at Humm studios in Bristol with stunning musicianship from the local scene and mixed by local producers Tom Campbell (Michael Kiwanuka, SAULT, Boci) and Jacob Bright (My Octopus Mind).

Man at Sea says: "I was trying to come up with an interesting or poetic title for this EP but as I get older I'm finding I want to be less ambiguous and generally more to the point both in my songwriting and how I present it to the world. Therefore this EP is about exactly what it says on the tin... Earlier this year, I found myself breaking up with my longtime partner of 8 years in order to move past a state of acute anxiety and towards putting my time fully into my music which is what I've always wanted to do.

Track one 'All I Ask' describes how anxiety can affect a relationship. Track two 'Terrible Thing' was my attempt to talk about the reason for the break up and to document 'in sound' the 'wonderful thing' that has had to be let go of. And track three 'Song for Lauryn' was inspired by a phone call with my friend Lauryn who was going through similar mid-30s type big life-changes; in writing her advice that 'the path is clear for landing, and you've nowhere to run' I have since realised I was inevitably giving myself the same piece of advice... "

Man at Sea is the moniker of singer-songwriter and composer David Hewson.

Described as a cross between Rufus Wainwright and Thom Yorke, his songs combine sparse arrangements with soaring melodies, shot through with lyrics that have an existential thread and often a dark undertone, dealing with themes of identity and the modern-day loss of spirituality.

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