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Kevin Coyne with Jon Langford and The Pine Valley Cosmonauts: One Day In Chicago (Spinney Records)

Kevin Coyne died three and a half years ago, and I miss him. Rugged, curmudgeonly and humane, freewheeling and down-to-earth, Kevin was the voice of worldly experience for our times: it seems wrong that he’s no longer with us, and equally wrong that his unique artistic voice is so underacknowledged. It’s true that superstardom would never have suited Kevin, indeed he often seemed to wilfully turn his back on any chance of the big time, but it would be right and just if he attained the posthumous recognition accorded to Nick Drake (who I like to think of as Kevin’s doppelganger, the voice of innocence – the other side of the Coyne, as it were).

Start your Coyne collection with Millionaires And Teddy Bears. Existing Coyneverts will find One Day In Chicago a poignantly splendid offering to perpetuate his presence. This was recorded – and seemingly composed – on one day in December 2002 (in Chicago, indeed) in collaboration with Jon Langford, once one of The Mekons and an underrated talent in his own right. The loose, unpolished feel suits Kevin perfectly. Coyne’s improvised lyrics are streams of consciousness that meander contrarily, never failing to convey the mature passion of a dryly ironic but so-deeply felt engagement with life, unillusioned, unpretentious but naturally intense. To listen to Kevin with an open soul is to swim in a deeper, inevitably painful emotional reality, the one we know is there but usually prefer not to acknowledge. It’s cathartic, man, shy away at your loss. Hats off to an irreplaceable hero.

www.kevincoyne.de