Finnegan Tui stokes quiet devastation on the cathartic ‘Fuel on the Fire’

With “Fuel on the Fire”, Finnegan Tui cements himself as one of the UK’s most quietly vital emerging voices — a balladeer capable of distilling raw feeling into restrained beauty, and crafting sonic spaces that linger long after the final note.

The track unfurls with a gentle guitar figure, minimalist and open — a silence not of absence, but of intention. It’s this command of restraint that defines Tui’s work. His voice, rich and shadowed, never forces emotion but draws it out patiently, each syllable stretching into breath, memory, and loss. There are ghosts behind the lyrics, but Tui never namechecks them. Instead, he lets the song bleed slowly, meditatively, like a truth you’ve known for a while but only just said aloud.

Produced by Jasper Trim and mixed by Andrew Scheps, “Fuel on the Fire” evolves from intimate folk confession into something more cinematic and unrelenting. Strings drone beneath the surface, ambient textures swell, and a choral outro emerges — not triumphant, but reverent. The result is a piece that feels at once grounded and ethereal, rooted in the earthly tones of Bon Iver’s early work but shaped by the atmospheric reach of James Blake or Lorn.

Tui’s path to this moment has been shaped by collaboration and curiosity. A New Zealander by birth and a Londoner by evolution, he’s studied, exhibited, and performed across disciplines and continents. That broad lens shows in his sonic architecture — this isn’t folk for the fireside; it’s folk for the vast inner landscape, for the spaces between endings and epiphanies.

Fresh off supporting FINK, RY X, and Cosmo Sheldrake across Europe, and with appearances at Secret Garden Party, Boomtown, and the upcoming Kernowfornia Festival, Tui is steadily building a presence that feels both elusive and essential. “Fuel on the Fire” deepens his discography, offering another glimpse into an artist who resists easy definition but invites full immersion.

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