B-Side Guys

Heat mirages become musical metaphor when McCabe transforms Billy Wilder’s cinematic legacy into experimental soul meditation on entertainment industry deception. “Sunset Boulevard” operates as both album opener and artistic manifesto, establishing the South London songwriter as someone capable of finding genuine darkness within sun-soaked beauty. His approach to neo-soul refuses traditional boundaries, creating something that feels simultaneously nostalgic for golden age Hollywood and prophetic about contemporary creative industry realities.

Patrick James Fitzroy’s production weaves west coast hip-hop synthesizers with Stereolab-influenced arrangements, creating textural foundation that supports McCabe’s ethereal vocal approach without overwhelming it. Those dub bass lines anchor the piece while allowing horns to punctuate the dreamy narrative at precisely calculated moments. The result feels like David Lynch directing a Motown session—familiar soul framework filtered through surreal sensibility that makes everything slightly off-kilter.

McCabe’s falsetto discovery at 24 clearly informs his current vocal identity, allowing him to drift through the instrumentation like actual heat shimmer over Los Angeles asphalt. His voice carries both intoxication and ominousness, perfectly capturing Hollywood’s fundamental duality. When he describes wanting to capture “that feeling of driving down Sunset Boulevard at golden hour,” the track delivers exactly that sensation—magical light haunted by melancholic undertones.

His stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach serves the song’s thematic exploration of industry illusion. Rather than traditional verse-chorus structures, McCabe allows the composition to direct his choices, creating musical flow that mirrors how dreams and reality blur together in entertainment capital environments. This experimental methodology distinguishes his work from conventional neo-soul artists who prioritize technical precision over atmospheric immersion.

The track’s positioning as final preview before his debut album reveals confident understanding of how to build anticipation through artistic statement rather than commercial appeal. McCabe has created something that functions as both standalone composition and gateway into larger conceptual territory exploring stardom, madness, and paranoia.

Drawing inspiration from Prince’s innovation while charting different path from South London’s post-punk dominance, McCabe establishes himself as artist capable of bridging retro influences with contemporary experimentation to create genuinely original “Experimental Soul.”