Exclusive album stream: Simone Felice, Strangers

There’s always been something of the busker to Simone Felice, so it’s no shock that he and his brothers (Ian and James) entered the music biz in the mid-2000s by performing covers on New York’s subway trains.

With a stint in The Felice Brothers band done and dusted – he left in 2009 – Simon has sashayed between his own band (The Duke & the King) and solo work. It’s with the latter that he is making serious inroads to capturing that beautiful (if occasionally irritating) ambiguity between visionary musician and soul-searching chancer.

Yet there is something resoundingly good about most of the 10 songs on Strangers – Felice gravitates between often fearless songwriting (inspired, in part, by his experience of emergency open-heart surgery in 2010) and meandering melodies that wouldn't be out of place on Astral Weeks. Yep – that good.

[ simonefelice.com ]

Download: Running Through My Head, Our Lady of the Gun, Bastille Day