Nev Cottee

Nev Cottee is one of Britain’s great unsung vocalists — a deep, dark baritone with a sixties slant that recalls prime-era Leonard Cohen or Lee Hazlewood, inflected with a Manchester lilt and, as one writer put it, all the world’s wisdom.

A singer-songwriter and guitarist from Manchester, he cut his teeth in his first band Proud Mary, whose debut album The Same Old Blues was released on Noel Gallagher’s own Big Brother label. He went on to play with Manchester bands Folks and The Second Floor and presented a much-loved Evening Session on 96.2 The Revolution. His solo debut Stations drew comparisons to Lee Hazlewood fronting Spiritualized. Subsequent albums — Broken Flowers, Strange News From the Sun and Madrid — have built a devoted following among those who find him, with reviewers consistently marvelling that an artist this gifted remains so under the radar.

On the debut Monks Road Social album Down The Willows, his impossibly rich baritone takes on a sixties-influenced confessional, his effortless voice riding baroque strings and drum machines in a combination that stops you in your tracks. Exactly the kind of artist Monks Road Records exists to champion.