Jude Woodhead is a London-based electronic music producer and electronic music artist, who emerged into the national scene with release of his first two singles “Beautiful Rain” and “For The Birds,” both of which revealed a young, upstart producer whose sound was compared favorably to the likes of Floating Points, Four Tet, Joy Orbison, and RJD2. But since the release of those two earlier singles, Woodhead started a new recording project Saint Jude, which was partially inspired by the tinnitus he developed while spending his formative years as a DJ and club-goer. And as a result, Woodhead turned from the euphoria and strobe light of the dance floor and towards the bedroom, where he began working on much more intimate material.
Woodhead’s forthcoming, self-titled Saint Jude debut is a decided sonic evolution that finds the up-and-coming British producer moving from the loop-heavy EDM-styled production for a sound that may recall Caribou and others — propulsive rhythms paired with shimmering guitar lines. The EP’s first single “Deaf Ears, Blind Years” is centered around hushed, reverb-drenched vocals ethereally floating over a lush and moody production featuring shimmering guitars, twinkling keys, four-on-the-floor like beats — and while recalling Paracosm-era Washed Out, the track evokes an aching nostalgia for a rapidly-passing youth full of excitement and waywardness. In press notes, Woodhead describes the song as “a bit of breakthrough for me in terms of songwriting: I was writing about real stuff rather than abstract ideas.”