Dundee musician’s irresistible vocal album
The inspiration for Andrew Wasylyk’s music comes from his surroundings in Eastern Scotland. His instrumental compositions use strings, brass, and keyboards to capture the sights and sounds of buildings, landscapes, and people in the coastal cities. Themes for Buildings and Spaces (2017) romanticizes the architecture and coastal life of Dundee, and The Paralian (2019) began as a commission to write music for a 19th-century Grecian harp displayed at the Hospitalfield arts centre in Arbroath. Balgay Hill: Morning in Magnolia (2021) came from Wasylyk’s observations of people and nature in Dundee’s Balgay Park, a place he found comfort through morning visits during the pandemic. Andrew’s arrangements incorporate jazz, folk, classical, and field recordings, along with his own minimalist elements for stunning soundscapes that offer beauty and tranquillity. Irreparable Parables, released in March 2026, breaks new ground. On the album, Wasylyk collaborates with six singer-songwriters, who wrote the lyrics and sing their own individual songs. Andrew’s only vocal input is the title track, which he labors through while suffering from a throat infection.
Collaboration is not necessarily new for the musician/producer. Arranger Pete Harvey has been adding luscious strings to Wasylyk’s albums since The Paralian, and in 2024, Andrew joined forces with graphic artist and musician Tommy Perman for the electronic instrumental LP Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On. But Irreparable Parables is his most mainstream solo effort with contributions from Stuart Murdoch (Belle and Sebastian), Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals), and Peter Brewis (Field Music). Singers Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph also add their voices to the project, along with Saya Ueno from the Japanese avant-pop duo Tenniscoats. The attractive album cover, illustrated by Clay Pipe Music founder Frances Castle, features six songbirds, each representing one of the guest artists. The humble Andrew isn’t included in the group picture, not yet confident enough to think of himself as a songbird.
*****
Dundee, on the eastern North Sea coast of Scotland, is Wasylyk’s home, where he has lived his entire life. On one online photo of Andrew (he is not photographed for his album covers) he looks like a man of the sea, with his dark beard and shoulder-length hair tucked under a watch cap. Wasylyk had been involved with making records and performing since the early aughts, and even though he has released nine albums under his name, in his interviews, he often radiates a child-like surprise about the profession he has found himself in. His journey began at age sixteen when an uncle gifted him a Fender Stratocaster. From there he jumped into the deep end of musical bliss, exploring jazz, folk, rock, classical, The Beatles, and Fairport Convention. “A door had opened and a mysterious universe asked me in, with no going back,” he told Fifteen Questions. His wide-ranging musical taste is ever-present in the arrangements he creates for his own works of art. “We used to bunk off school to watch Ironside because we loved the Quincy Jones theme tune so much,” he told Nick Hasted in a 2023 interview for Uncut Magazine. “Then that pushed me into David Axelrod territory. I can be shooting for Axelrod and Talk Talk, but because I don’t have their ability, I always miss. You end up in this grey area that you make your own.”
Wasylyk joined The Hazey Janes in the early 2000s. His multi-instrumental and producing skills led him to moonlight in the groups Idlewild and Art of the Memory Palace, and to work on albums for Roddy Woomble and The Electric Soft Parade. He used the name Andrew Mitchell, but for his first solo LP, Soroky (2015), he introduced the last name Wasylyk. “I was Andrew Wasylyk when I was born,” he told Bob Fischer for The Haunted Generation. “My grandfather Ivan Wasylyk was from a place called Soroky, in western Ukraine. But I changed my name to my mum’s maiden name when I was about 12. I moved school a lot as a kid, and I always felt really self-conscious…you know, Here’s the new boy. Andrew W-as-k…oh! So using Wasylyk on the albums felt like an appropriate way to exorcise that, to reclaim and to celebrate it.” Soroky is an indie pop record with Wasylyk singing on every track. When he received a commission to write music about Dundee for the NEoN Digital Arts Festival, his musical direction shifted. The instrumental pieces that developed into Themes for Buildings and Spaces took him on a walking tour of the city, experiencing historic buildings and writing a score from the emotions they evoked. For the next six albums that followed, his recordings became more ambitious with each new release.
Wasylyk wrote and arranged the music for each song on Irreparable Parables, and he contributed three instrumental pieces. “Private Symphony #2” opens the album with Stuart Murdoch on vocals and he’s represented on the album sleeve as the cuckoo bird, like the B&S song “I’m a Cuckoo.” Murdoch’s soft vocals are a perfect partner for Wasylyk’s sweeping arrangement, as Andrew noted on his Bandcamp page. “It was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.” Gruff Rhys (the European green woodpecker) contributes “The Cold Collar,” which features lively piano and understated strings. Vibrant brass add a punch to the upbeat “Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever,” sung by (the nightingale) Molly Linen. Each singer brings their own personal flair to the project; the most haunting being “Spectators In The Absence Of God,” performed by Scottish singer Kathryn Joseph. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” said Wasylyk. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.” Wasylyk gives Irreparable Parables a dramatic finale with the closing track “Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out The Sea.” It’s a moving piano and orchestral piece that shows the arranger’s classical music influence.
Irreparable Parables may encourage Andrew Wasylyk to return to singing his own songs on future albums. Despite the ailment that gave the song “Irreparable Parables” its craggy edge, he has a singing voice and a command of the stage that should never keep him from being a songbird. In a live performance that was filmed for Magic Box Live a decade ago, he is surrounded by a small group of musicians and a choir, and when he is not at the microphone, he roams the stage, pulling his long locks behind his ears as he delights in the sounds each player contributes. Either way, more records like Irreparable Parables are welcome. Still, where did Wasylyk come up with the album’s hard-to-say-three-times-in-a-row title? Andrew has admitted to it having multiple meanings, and he told Robin Murray with Clash Music it was “an attempt to look at the somewhat fraught and frantic ways we now share and communicate things in our world.” He also added, “the language of ‘Irra-pair-able-para-bles’ tumbled off the tongue quite pleasingly”