Listen: Amateur Best – Be Happy

Double Denim had a pretty great 2011, committing to 7” some of the best pop songs of the year.

The label’s latest release is the debut single from London’s Amateur Best, who you might previously have know as Primary 1. ‘Be Happy’ is the first instalment in a series of melancholic tales centred around James Best, a fictional “sometime London DJ, latent alcoholic and lifelong amateur.”

In fact, though, the track doesn’t sound like London at all. Instead, it’s a combination of big-sky Midwestern melodicism and a paper-thin vocal that recalls a bedroom Mayer Hawthorne. Understated but ambitious, and really very lovely.