Bullion is Nathan Jenkins, an enduring cult figure of electronic music. A producer and songwriter quietly to be found connecting artists, genre and UK subculture. His credits range from Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Howard, Nilüfer Yanya and Avalon Emerson’s breakout album & The Charm to records for Westerman and Joviale.
Latest surprise record ‘Affection‘ (Ghostly International), started life upon Nathan’s move back to London from Lisbon, where he relocated in 2018. Back then, the comfort of the crowd suited him: self-confessedly passive and faltering by nature, the opportunity to exist somewhere without any personal history proved liberating. Returning home, Nathan increasingly found himself reflecting on his place in the world, seeking affection in place of cynicism.
Bullion’s music has always been difficult to pin down, but entirely distinctive. On ‘Affection’, Bullion collaborates with Domino Publishing artists Charlotte Adigéry and Panda Bear (Animal Collective), on songs ‘A City’s Never’, and ‘World_train’, respectively. ‘World_train’ is an eccentric and brilliantly odd angle on Bullion’s love of pop, its locomotive power summoning a lost past amidst the uncertainties of the everyday. ‘I can hardly understand what it takes to be a real man’, Bullion sings. ‘…and nobody can’, Adigéry confirms. ‘A City’s Never’ emerging after Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) and Nathan lived in Lisbon at the same time but never actually met. For Bullion, the willingness to allow others into his songwriting process is as much about opening up the world of the album as it is about bettering the work and the person.
‘Affection’ is an unassumingly powerful pursuit of a more compassionate form of confidence, in which Bullion cements his place in the present-day by entirely surrendering to the future.