Richard Dawson – End of the Middle (CD)

The title of Richard Dawson’s new album End of the Middle is a suitably slippery contradiction, one that invites multiple interpretations: Middle-aging? Middle-class? The middle-point of Dawson’s career? The centre of a record? Centrism in general? Polarisation? The possibility of having a balanced discussion about anything? Stuck in the middle with you? Middle England? Middling songwriting? End of the Middle is a wonkily beautiful peer into the workings of the family unit, perhaps several generations of the same family: “I wanted this record to be small-scale and very domestic”, Dawson explains, “to be stripped back, stark and naked, and let the lyrics and melodies speak for themselves and for the people in the songs”. By paring things right back what is revealed is a suite of remarkably poised, oddly elegant, beautiful music.