Biscuits for Breakfast

When presenting Biscuits for Breakfast to his label, Fink was so unsure of his new artistic direction that he guarded himself against criticism by claiming that its smoky blues vocals were the work of a new American he was collaborating with. Indeed, compared to the somewhat straight-ahead trip-hop beatsmithing on his earlier album Fresh Produce, this is driven by acoustic guitar and largely traditional songwriting: a world away from the sound he'd been associated with. Biscuits for Breakfast was no experiment, though; Fink is both exposed and emboldened using his own voice and what would later become a signature style of post-electronica blues. "Pills in My Pocket" may very well be the first "unplugged" song about raver woes, but perhaps it's that particular history that makes Fink so compelling—a boy becoming a man in an artistic culmination that would define the next phase of his life.