WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

We saw rising star Ducrot live last month at Camden’s KOKO and the predominantly young 20-something female audience gasped when he explained the inspiration behind this song about a close friend who took his own life.

• Read on for reasons including Ducrot’s thoughts on his latest single about friend Phily

Ducrot says: ‘I was trying to write Part of Me for such a long time but I never managed to get it right. Losing a friend to suicide isn’t the easiest thing to put in words as there are so many emotions of so many people you have to consider. I knew how important the song would be to anyone who was going through the same thing so I just couldn’t get it wrong.

‘I think eventually there was a moment where I just let go and I remember all the lyrics flooding out of what seemed to be nowhere and I knew then this was it, everything I felt, everything I wanted to say and capture about our friendship, the person he was, how he made us all feel and how he left us feeling it just poured out into this song. I always thought Phily would live forever, hopefully this song can in his place.’

We 1st heard it late last year when Ducrot supported Ella Henderson at 02 Shepherd’s Bush Empire and said: ‘Tonight he plays a short set including the original of All For You, 1 of our favourite songs of 2022, and a new song about a friend who committed suicide which is so heart-on-sleeve that it’s such a brave thing to do as a support act and only elevates him in our eyes.’

Both All For You and I’ll Be Waiting have been top 20 UK hits, the latter a song of the month for us in November and a hit across Europe.

Shortly after we saw him in Camden in March he supported Ed Sheeran on a 4-date arena tour which included 2 nights at London’s The 02.

We’ve seen Ducrot live 3 times now and we can’t wait for his debut album because he has so much great material unreleased that it’s undoubtedly going to be 1 of the year’s best.

Part Of Me may be a little downbeat to win the radio play he needs to convert a big audience but it is live where he is slowly and surely doing very much that.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Cian Ducrot Tickets
• Have you heard any of these songs or seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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