Willis Earl Beal - Experiments In Time: album stream

Singer returns with a self-released album, a collection of ominous ballads inspired by Tom Waits and Nat King Cole. Take a listen and let us know what you make of it

“I can’t talk to anybody most of the time. I feel very alone, with the exception of my wife. I have boundless energy but sometimes it gets to the point where it curdles like milk,” reflects Willis Earl Beal of his new album Experiments In Time. “I want to make the listener feel as if they are having a conversation with me. I make music for the people who hear it and get it and instantaneously have a connection with it. I want people to feel they have a friend or companion.”

A man who seems to speak with both belligerence and vulnerability at all times, Beal’s trajectory so far has been marred with conflict and controversy. Arriving with a PR-pleasing backstory back in 2012, he was known as the homeless singer who became a star; an artist raised on Chicago’s southside who joined the army and was discharged, auditioned for X Factor and was scooped up by XL’s New York-based imprint, Hot Charity. One professionally produced album and a whirlwind tour later and Beal was “spiralling in new, sometimes unwelcome and unwholesome directions.” Now he returns to reestablish himself with his third LP, the contemplative, self-released Experiments In Time.