Coles Corner, Richard Hawley's first album for Mute and the follow up to previous albums on Setanta, Late Night Final (2001) and Lowedges (2003), was recorded at Yellowarch Studio in Sheffield, singer/songwriter Hawley’s hometown and is a beautiful album, filled with nostalgia, emotion and romance.

The album’s orchestral splendour sits alongside earthy rock and roll with songs that are by turns intimate and soaring. Richard Hawley insists his mind is full only with “confused thoughts and Guinness”. But when he sings, he does so in a voice that’s deep and low, and does not lie. His merciful, wise songs tell of the heart’s truths as seen in the dark, revealed by moonlight.

The title track, a string-led, alone-in-a-crowd song, sees Hawley’s narrator walk the city at night and name checks an old meeting place for Sheffield, Coles Corner, on the site where John Lewis now stands. Says Hawley “Sheffield’s couples, lovers, friends, mums and dads or whatever, would meet [there]. I’ve always found it quite a romantic notion – how many kids in Sheffield are knocking about as a result of a meeting at Coles Corner?’ ‘I’ll meet you at Coles Corner…’ People still say it, even though it hasn’t existed for years. It only exists, really, in the ether.”

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