Description
Oliver Sim – Hideous Bastard – Vinyl Record
Spotify Fans First exclusive LP + signed print
The debut solo album from XX’s Oliver Sim
Oliver Sim’s Hideous Bastard is a bold, beautifully crafted solo debut that turns fear and shame into sleek, cinematic pop. Produced by Jamie xx, the album feels like a neon-lit confession: bass-heavy, sharply detailed, and emotionally exposed, with Sim’s voice taking center stage in a way that’s both intimate and theatrical. The songs move through dark corners—self-image, stigma, longing, and the complicated aftermath of trying to become comfortable in your own skin—yet the record never collapses into gloom. Instead, it finds momentum in the act of speaking plainly, using dancefloor tension, glossy synths, and late-night grooves as a way to bring difficult truths to the surface and let light hit them.
A defining part of the album’s power is how directly it addresses queerness and Sim’s experience of living with HIV, not as a headline, but as something threaded into the emotional fabric of the songs. That honesty gives the record its pulse: it’s vulnerable without being fragile, dramatic without being melodramatic, and often unexpectedly uplifting in the way it reframes pain as something survivable—and even shareable. The music mirrors that emotional arc, balancing cold, futuristic textures with warmer human touches, and using guest voices like vivid character cameos rather than simple features. The title track “Hideous,” featuring Jimmy Somerville, plays like a turning point—an anxious inner monologue transformed into a cathartic, club-lit release.
Hideous Bastard also extends beyond the album format into a wider visual world. It was released alongside a short film directed by Yann Gonzalez, leaning into queer horror imagery and dark camp as a way to confront stigma and self-mythology head-on—making the project feel like a full universe rather than just a set of tracks. The result is a debut that’s stylish and immediate on the surface, but deeper the longer you sit with it: a record about learning to live with what once felt unspeakable, and finding connection—and even joy—on the other side.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
Saccharine
Confident Man
GMT
Fruit
Run The Credits
Hideous
Romance With A Memory
Sensitive Child
Never Here
Unreliable Narrator
