Honey Hideout conjures up a raft of images. It might be a TV advert for Corn Flakes, somewhere to escape the attention of the Honey Monster, or even a soft porn character.
Turns out that it is the moniker for Danish musician, producer and songwriter, Markus Artved and this is his debut single under that name, ‘Goodbyes’.
He became Honey Hideout following a trip to the US in 2022 where he learned how to cultivate his own personal and existential thoughts, which are portrayed as “a small musical cosmos.”
Inspired by the psychedelic pop of the 1960s and 70s he focuses on the analogue.
The song was crafted not out of Santa Monica or Monterrey as it sounds like it might be but at an old family cottage on the North Sea, far from Copenhagen, somewhere that to Markus is both in the middle of nowhere and also in the centre of the world, at least for a short time during the holiday season.
That’s something I can relate to personally, having been carted off as a kid to a ‘holiday camp’ – popular vacation venues at the time where hundreds, even thousands, of people congregated each week in something between a dawn to dusk pleasure dome and a boot camp.
And I well recall the rigmarole of ‘goodbyes’ at the end of each week, “until next summer”. There was no social media by which to keep in touch then. And it was where I met my first girlfriend. I was 10 and she was eight.
The abrupt “goodbye” at the end of the song is a cute little addition, because that’s how such short-term friendships end, isn’t it; abruptly and possibly never to resume?
His endeavour was to connect multiple musical genres such as indie, psych pop and jazz into an escapist dream. I don’t hear much jazz in this song but it oozes the sort of psych-pop that came out of the 1960s. It might have been the B-side to ‘Walk away Renée’.
Ok, it’s sentimental and perhaps a little bit schmaltzy but no more so than, say, some of Lukas Graham’s stuff, for which Markus has produced some singles, and they haven’t done too badly for themselves, have they?
‘Goodbyes’ was released on 8th December and Honey Hideout has more to come in 2024.
Find him on:
Website: https://www.markusartved.com/music.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markus.artved
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markusartved/
