JON GOMM

Jon Gomm can play guitar. We know this. Since his debut album, Hypertension, sparked the tap ’n’ slap acoustic sub-genre back in 2003, Gomm’s polyrhythmic dexterity has been so well established that the Blackpool-born wizard can spare the fireworks and give himself over entirely to songcraft on his 2020 album, The Faintest Idea. Well, almost, that is. Because while The Faintest Idea is first and foremost a songwriting masterclass – with Gomm exploring the beauty and pain of life’s travails – it hasn’t stopped him casually ripping up accepted truths of acoustic technique along the way, with a slew of sounds-like-six-hands guitar parts. “I’ve just always got that itch at the back of my mind,” he says, “where I’m thinking, ‘I wonder how I could play that…?’”

How pleased are you with The Faintest Idea?

“There’ll always be times my critical mind won’t switch off. But I can listen to the album and feel proud. Y’know, there are moments it’s hard to listen to, emotionally. I’ve lost a couple of friends and close family in the last few years. So there’s music here that’s helped me express that. I’ve also had a daughter and that’s changed how I look at the world. I used to separate myself off and tried to maintain my own little isolated universe. But with a loss or a birth, you realise you’re really