FEATURE: Spotlight: Oliver Sim — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

Oliver Sim

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PRIOR to the release of his album…

Hideous Bastard in September, I wanted to shine a light on the magnificent Oliver Sim. Go and pre-order his album, as it is a self-confessional journey of fear and shame inspired by the queer horror films he loves. Oliver is joined by Jamie xx, who produces Hideous Bastard with an elegant touch, and Jimmy Somerville. It is going to be one of the best albums of this year. There are a couple of interviews that I want to source, just so that we can learn more about Sim. I know him best as a member of The xx alongside Romy Madley Croft and Jamie xx. Last month, Sim shared the hugely potent and personal track, Hideous. NME reported news of the incredible Oliver Sim putting out a song that everybody needs to hear:

“Oliver Sim has shared his new single ‘Hideous’, which addresses the xx musician’s diagnosis with HIV at the age of 17.

The track is the latest preview of Sim’s newly announced debut solo album ‘Hideous Bastard’, which has been produced by Jamie xx and is set for release on September 9 via Young.

Sim has today (May 23) shared ‘Hideous’, which features Bronski Beat and The Communards’ Jimmy Somerville on guest vocals. It’s also been accompanied by a new Yann Gonzalez-directed video, which you can see below.

In a note accompanying its release, Sim explained that ‘Hideous’ explores his experience of living with HIV.

“Early on in the making of my record, ‘Hideous Bastard’, I realised that I was writing a lot about fear and shame,” Sim wrote. “I imagine that might paint a picture of a dark, ‘woe is me’-sounding album, but in recent years I’ve become a firm believer that the best antidote to these feelings can be bringing them to the surface and shedding some light on them.

“I haven’t written the record to dwell, but rather to free myself of some of the shame and fear that I’ve felt for a long time. So, I hear a lot of the music as joyous, because the experience of writing and recording it has been the complete opposite of what fear and shame have been for me.”

Sim continued: “Two thirds in, having a good idea of what the record was about, I realised I’d been circling around one of the things that has probably caused me the most fear and shame. My HIV status. I’ve been living with HIV since I was 17 and it’s played with how I’ve felt towards myself, and how I’ve assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life.

“So, quite impulsively, I wrote about it on a song called ‘Hideous’. I thought I could release it into the world and be done with it. After playing the song to my mum, being the protective and wise mum that she is, she gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received. She suggested that I spend some time having conversations with people in my life first. Either people I hadn’t told yet, or people I had told but hadn’t wanted to talk much further on it. Since writing ‘Hideous’, I’ve spent the past two years having those conversations, which was difficult and uncomfortable to start with, but has allowed me to feel a lot freer and has only strengthened my relationship with myself and with the people in my life”.

I want to finish off with a terrific interview and profile from The New York Times. It was published to publicise the forthcoming release of Hideous Bastard. It is a fascinating article that paints the picture of a hugely strong young man. Sim talks about writing about his H.I.V. positive status:

“Sim’s vocals on “Hideous Bastard” are flinty and melismatic. The lyrics are wry and heartbreaking. “A lot of the sense of humor is very British,” he said. “To me, starting a song with ‘I’m ugly’ is hilarious.”

Oliver Sim is far from ugly in any conventional sense of the word. He is tall and slim, with gigantic amber-colored eyes that he says turn a bit green when he cries. On an April afternoon, he sported baggy khakis and a fresh tan courtesy of a weekend watching his bandmate Jamie xx at Coachella. Something darker lurked beneath his blue-and-white-striped button-down: a T-shirt emblazoned with “Buffalo Bill’s Body Lotion,” an allusion to the serial killer in the film “The Silence of the Lambs.”

“Hideous,” a mid-tempo pop song with moody and lush orchestration, opens the album, and its final verse packs a wallop: “Been living with H.I.V. since age 17, am I hideous?”

Those lyrics are true. Oliver Sim has been living with H.I.V. for 15 years. Many of his friends and family were aware of that fact, but this is the first time he’s chosen to discuss his status in public.

“I wrote that song knowing that a lot of this record had to do with shame and fear and I knew I was dancing around something that causes me the most shame,” he said.

Sim said he was inspired by musicians like John Grant and Mykki Blanco, who make challenging and nuanced work and are also open about their H.I.V. positive status. “For me, this is the opposite of shame,” Sim continued. “If I were deepest in shame I would have made a record not talking about any of this stuff.”

When Sim first wrote “Hideous,” he played it for his mother. “She gave me a great piece of advice,” he recalled. “She was like, ‘How about you have some conversations before you do this?’”.

“The stigma associated with H.I.V. made a lasting impact on him. “It started to marry itself with my sexuality,” he said. “As if sex itself was something that was destructive or dangerous or shameful.”

“And I think I wanted to pull that apart, to separate those two,” he added, referring to his new album. But Sim stressed that H.I.V. is only one part of the story he’s telling on “Hideous Bastard.”

“This record isn’t about H.I.V.,” he said. “I’m not naïve, I know it’s going to be talked about and it will be a defining part of it, but that’s not how I see this record. It’s about shame, it’s about fear and it’s celebratory.”

After the cemetery, Sim wanted ice cream. His publicist knew a great place in Los Feliz that offered flavors like biscuits and jam and everything bagel. Before entering the shop, Sim lit a cigarette and waxed about Jamie Lee Curtis. “I think I wanted to be her: angry and sexy,” he said.

Sim doesn’t come across as angry. He also doesn’t come across as morose or withdrawn, as he has frequently been described in the past. In person, he was quick to laugh and easy to talk to. As we rode around Los Angeles, he dished about a recent date, sang along to “Together Again” by Janet Jackson and professed his love for the reality TV show “Selling Sunset.”

“I don’t think I’m the shy, awkward person that’s maybe been written about or portrayed,” he said, tapping a cigarette. The pandemic also made him realize that he wasn’t quite the introvert he had always thought himself to be”.

I will wrap things up now. Go and pre-order Hideous Bastard if you can. Oliver Sim is so compelling as a person and songwriting. This all goes into his amazing work. I am looking forward to seeing how his solo album is received, in addition to where The xx go next and whether they are going to put out another album. The remarkable Oliver Sim is…