1 day ago
5
There’s something slightly deceptive about “Coasting”. It moves fast, the drums are alive and almost unruly below blooming strings, whilst the hook feels built for motion. It sounds celebratory, consistently driving a forward momentum. Hutch built the skeleton of the song through rhythm alone, getting behind the drum kit before any words existed. There’s something telling in that approach, as the musical release comes through movement first, explanation later. “It was very hands-on,” says. “One of those days where it just arrived.”
From there, “Coasting” became what he rather colourfully describes as a “joyful, wacky, triumphant musical box,” intentionally bright enough to carry something heavier on top. He’s drawn to that contrast, concealing great depth beneath such a lively sound, aspiring to create the kind of music that lets you dance first, think later.
Hutch’s approach mirrors the period of life that the track draws from. Between the ages of 13 and 20, he describes struggling with an obsessive, addictive mindset, repeating patterns that felt unmanageable at the time, and largely unspoken. The final rap verse in “Coasting” reads almost like a stream-of-consciousness or personal diary entry, without ever feeling self-pitying or romanticised, just entirely honest.
What’s striking isn’t the darkness itself, but the subsequent positive reframing of it. When Hutch stopped drinking at 20 and made significant lifestyle changes, “that obsessive mind didn’t go away,” he explains. “It just redirected.” Now, that same compulsion fuels the music. You can hear it in the layering, there’s a joy in it, and that triumphant and emotive sound feels earned, because it knows what it’s pushing against.
Hutch’s influences surface subconsciously rather than strategically. He grew up raised on the harmonic sounds of jazz and blues, and around the time of writing “Coasting”, he was revisiting icons such as Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, drawn to their emotional directness and musicality. There’s even a slightly unexpected rhythmic nod to Roots Manuva’s “Witness (1 Hope)”. The swelling strings lend to the track what Hutch describes as a faintly James Bond-esque drama, an understandable detail considering how theatrical the foundations of the track feel. He resists over-referencing in the studio, however: “I’d rather see what happens in the room, than realise the influences afterwards.”
When asked to picture the song as a film scene, Hutch lands on a chaotic night out on a pier, perhaps the all-too-familiar Brighton pier close to his native suburbs. Its bright lights and high energy, but with something slightly unravelling beneath the surface. It’s a perfect metaphor, encapsulating celebration with a more emotive undercurrent.
Hutch doesn’t glamorise self-destruction, but he doesn’t exactly shy from confronting it head-on either. Instead, he captures the moment where momentum could tip either way, when compulsion becomes either collapse or creation. On “Coasting”, that momentum creates something truly new and exciting.
English (US) · 