Next Wave #611: Honne

Rich and soulful late-night electronics…

These days, it seems like almost everyone gets compared to the likes of James Blake and Frank Ocean. There’s a lot of music floating about that sounds like them; silky smooth, R&B vocals fused together with nocturnal, melancholic electronic beats. It seems like a safe formula for building up hype before promptly disappearing into the sonic abyss.

While Honne (AKA Andy and James) can be described in all of these ways, they’re careful not to fall into this trap. “We love these artists,” James says, “but we’re just taking certain elements from these people and trying to make something that sounds nothing like them, something completely new.”

And they’d be right. There’s something refreshing about the electronic duo; the beautifully rich, soulful vocals sounding like an instrument itself amongst expert production. It makes sense that they’d be able to craft a song perfectly – they’re both music teachers. “I teach bands in schools and teach everyone from eight to 18,” James says. “Andy teaches music technology stuff and also does remix workshops for kids.”

The music-making process between them is quite unusual, as they don’t get together until the later stages of production. “I write the instrumental for the track and email it to Andy and he sings on it and sends it back,” says James. “It’s quite a bizarre writing process, but it seems to be working. We tend to have the same opinion on stuff so it’s not stressful at all.”

We get onto the subject of the B-side to their latest single ‘Warm On A Cold Night’, ‘Baby Please’, a song so steeped in heartbreak that it’s hard not to imagine it came from a sad place.

“A lot of the lyrics that Andy writes, he bases on other people’s experiences; his close friends and family,” James explains, “He really empathises with people and I think if you’re good at doing that then you don’t have to be heartbroken yourself to be able to write a sad song like that.”

Before we part ways, Clash asks what ‘Honne’ means. “It means ‘true feelings’,” James reveals. “It’s an expression that’s unique to Japan and it means ‘the true feelings that you would only show to your closest companions’.”

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WHERE: East London

WHAT: Rich and soulful late-night electronics.

GET 3 SONGS: ‘Warm On a Cold Night’ (video above), ‘Baby Please’, ‘Just Once (Remix)’

FACT: James used to be really good at yo-yoing. They called him ‘Yo-yo boy’ at school and named his yo-yo ‘Snow-Yo’ because it was white.

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Words: Daisy Jones
Photo: Ash Kingston
Fashion: Shirley Amartey

Honne online

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