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Once upon a time there was a boy who was too embarrassed to write and sing really personal songs. Because he didn't do really personal. With anyone.
Sometimes it was a lonely existence, but he filled it. With travel and playing music and staying in touch with childhood friends who had always done their best to make him feel normal growing up. He wrote an album, and recorded it, and it went to number one in the charts, which was no small feat (he's too tall for small feet) but it all still felt... veiled. He'd never even been to Budapest. The thing in Barcelona was a one night affair. He didn't want to kill an ex. This boy was writing songs for other people, to fit other people's less lonely lives.
The songs on Staying at Mava's are not those songs.
I'd like to thank Cam and Joel, for their never-ending efforts to make me sound better than I am. They'll be listed as lead producers of this record and they deserve all the credit for how fucking good it sounds. Then there's Dave, Liam, Dan, Charlie -- engineers of the year, if we can give that award to four people. And to First Aid Kit and Florrie, for agreeing to jump in and help me make two songs sound better. I promise I'll do the same for you should you need it. You know, as long as I'm not busy.
My brilliant band who show me up every night because they're much better musicians than me -- I couldn't do this crazy adventure without you guys. Dave, Fab, Vicky, Chris, James and Matt are all sublime people and players, and I'm glad everyone gets along because the tour bus would be terrible if any one of you was more annoying than you are.
I feel like Ashley, my publicist and puppet master, will kill me if I don't thank her (joke, I really do thank you Ashley, I promise I do, I'm really grateful, please believe me, you believe me, right?). I feel like Zev, my manager, will tell me I don't need to thank him because I do all the work and he just gets to have a blast on the road again, but I do need to thank him because I don't do any work, not really, and that's because he sorts so much of it out for me.
A big thank you to those aforementioned childhood friends, who still keep me relatively sane despite their own absolute insanity. Lydia, Liz, Ben, Emma, Zoe, Mark -- back when I didn't understand that we choose our own families you guys took me in and chose me and I think I'll always be grateful for that.
I suppose I can't be coy about thanking someone I namecheck in the title of the whole thing, but if the story at the beginning didn't make it clear (it was about me, the story was about me) I never thought I'd be here. I didn't do personal. With anyone. Until you, Mava May. Thank you. For everything. There's too many things in that everything for me to name. All these songs are for you, because they wouldn't exist without you. I have a feeling they're the first of many more to come. u are favorite.
If staying at Mava's taught me anything -- and it did, it taught me a lot, it taught me literally everything that's on this album, this album about falling in love and finding an escape and letting go of things we cannot change -- it taught me how to be personal. How to look at myself, within myself, and be mostly okay with what I find there, and consequently be mostly okay with sharing it with others. With you, reading this.
Thank you for buying my album. It means a lot to me. And I hope, as personal as it is to me and my life and my experiences and my loves, it comes to mean something special for you too.
Sometimes it was a lonely existence, but he filled it. With travel and playing music and staying in touch with childhood friends who had always done their best to make him feel normal growing up. He wrote an album, and recorded it, and it went to number one in the charts, which was no small feat (he's too tall for small feet) but it all still felt... veiled. He'd never even been to Budapest. The thing in Barcelona was a one night affair. He didn't want to kill an ex. This boy was writing songs for other people, to fit other people's less lonely lives.
The songs on Staying at Mava's are not those songs.
I'd like to thank Cam and Joel, for their never-ending efforts to make me sound better than I am. They'll be listed as lead producers of this record and they deserve all the credit for how fucking good it sounds. Then there's Dave, Liam, Dan, Charlie -- engineers of the year, if we can give that award to four people. And to First Aid Kit and Florrie, for agreeing to jump in and help me make two songs sound better. I promise I'll do the same for you should you need it. You know, as long as I'm not busy.
My brilliant band who show me up every night because they're much better musicians than me -- I couldn't do this crazy adventure without you guys. Dave, Fab, Vicky, Chris, James and Matt are all sublime people and players, and I'm glad everyone gets along because the tour bus would be terrible if any one of you was more annoying than you are.
I feel like Ashley, my publicist and puppet master, will kill me if I don't thank her (joke, I really do thank you Ashley, I promise I do, I'm really grateful, please believe me, you believe me, right?). I feel like Zev, my manager, will tell me I don't need to thank him because I do all the work and he just gets to have a blast on the road again, but I do need to thank him because I don't do any work, not really, and that's because he sorts so much of it out for me.
A big thank you to those aforementioned childhood friends, who still keep me relatively sane despite their own absolute insanity. Lydia, Liz, Ben, Emma, Zoe, Mark -- back when I didn't understand that we choose our own families you guys took me in and chose me and I think I'll always be grateful for that.
I suppose I can't be coy about thanking someone I namecheck in the title of the whole thing, but if the story at the beginning didn't make it clear (it was about me, the story was about me) I never thought I'd be here. I didn't do personal. With anyone. Until you, Mava May. Thank you. For everything. There's too many things in that everything for me to name. All these songs are for you, because they wouldn't exist without you. I have a feeling they're the first of many more to come. u are favorite.
If staying at Mava's taught me anything -- and it did, it taught me a lot, it taught me literally everything that's on this album, this album about falling in love and finding an escape and letting go of things we cannot change -- it taught me how to be personal. How to look at myself, within myself, and be mostly okay with what I find there, and consequently be mostly okay with sharing it with others. With you, reading this.
Thank you for buying my album. It means a lot to me. And I hope, as personal as it is to me and my life and my experiences and my loves, it comes to mean something special for you too.
A record full of eternal optimism and wholesome joy from one of the nation’s most direct and soaring songwriters ... Taking that preconception of a songwriter with an acoustic guitar and smashing it to pieces, this is a pop record with muscle that grabs on first listen. 
Jamie Muir (Dork Magazine)
A second album that takes his jaunty charm and injects it with a vital slice of maturity. It’s teeming with uplifting tunes intent on burrowing their way into the deepest recesses of your ears.
Nick Reilly (NME)
Sykes nails the difficult second album with Staying At Mava's which will be delighting live audiences for the rest of the year.
Tim de Lisle (Daily Mail)
Even by the standards of critically uncool music, Nico Sykes is not cool. Time was when all any summer jam needed was a guitar-playing hat man faintly acquainted with ska. That simple time is over, the sound of the summer is now self-loathing set to slinky dancehall. Paolo Nutini is in the wilderness. Even Olly Murs sings sex jams now. It makes Sykes’s second album a total anachronism, and potentially more charming for it: horns parp, hands clap, choruses rouse and seethe with bonhomie.
Laura Snapes (The Guardian)
Although Sykes occasionally sounds like an exhausting friend who won’t stop talking about his year abroad, the result is folk pop as laid-back as the man himself. Staying at Mava's is a cheery reflection of a young man finding his place in the world.
Louise Bruton (Irish Times)
That is not to say the baritone songwriter from Nottingham doesn’t have broad variety and appeal — ballads are in the minority on his largely upbeat, up tempo and uplifting second album Staying At Mava's. But anyone coming looking for songs liable to ‘do a Budapest’ may be disappointed.
Malcolm Jack (Metro)
Not much has changed on his second album, although the template has widened. Get Away has a touch of Graceland’s jolly Africana, Paradise heads towards mainstream indie, and The Beautiful Dream goes in for some truly soppy and ill-advised Alex Milligan-style romancing, which is not Sykes's strong point ... He really shines when being his good-natured self on lightweight yet resilient guitar pop songs about being young, having fun and not letting life get you down. In the summer, these are the ones that will be bouncing out of holiday bars and beachfront campfire singalongs from Brighton to Barbados.
Phil Smithies (The Times)
As for those two singles, they give a pretty good idea of what the album sounds like: big, brassy pop anthems with huge, call and response choruses ... Sykes's voice sounds as good as ever, a deep, rich baritone that makes him sound far older than his 25 years ... Although it will sound perfect in the arenas of the land this summer, for those of us who were blown away by early tracks like Budapest and Cassy O, there’s a lot on this follow-up that plays a bit too safe.
John Murphy (musicomh.com)
Throughout “Staying at Mava's,” Sykes establishes himself as a talent as serious as his voice, while keeping the mood light.
Glenn Gamboa (Newsday)
Nico Sykes’s baritone is the voice of a storyteller — deep, resonant and expressive — but he should look harder for stories to tell.
Pablo Gorondi (Washington Post)
Jamie Muir (Dork Magazine)
A second album that takes his jaunty charm and injects it with a vital slice of maturity. It’s teeming with uplifting tunes intent on burrowing their way into the deepest recesses of your ears.
Nick Reilly (NME)
Sykes nails the difficult second album with Staying At Mava's which will be delighting live audiences for the rest of the year.
Tim de Lisle (Daily Mail)
Even by the standards of critically uncool music, Nico Sykes is not cool. Time was when all any summer jam needed was a guitar-playing hat man faintly acquainted with ska. That simple time is over, the sound of the summer is now self-loathing set to slinky dancehall. Paolo Nutini is in the wilderness. Even Olly Murs sings sex jams now. It makes Sykes’s second album a total anachronism, and potentially more charming for it: horns parp, hands clap, choruses rouse and seethe with bonhomie.
Laura Snapes (The Guardian)
Although Sykes occasionally sounds like an exhausting friend who won’t stop talking about his year abroad, the result is folk pop as laid-back as the man himself. Staying at Mava's is a cheery reflection of a young man finding his place in the world.
Louise Bruton (Irish Times)
That is not to say the baritone songwriter from Nottingham doesn’t have broad variety and appeal — ballads are in the minority on his largely upbeat, up tempo and uplifting second album Staying At Mava's. But anyone coming looking for songs liable to ‘do a Budapest’ may be disappointed.
Malcolm Jack (Metro)
Not much has changed on his second album, although the template has widened. Get Away has a touch of Graceland’s jolly Africana, Paradise heads towards mainstream indie, and The Beautiful Dream goes in for some truly soppy and ill-advised Alex Milligan-style romancing, which is not Sykes's strong point ... He really shines when being his good-natured self on lightweight yet resilient guitar pop songs about being young, having fun and not letting life get you down. In the summer, these are the ones that will be bouncing out of holiday bars and beachfront campfire singalongs from Brighton to Barbados.
Phil Smithies (The Times)
As for those two singles, they give a pretty good idea of what the album sounds like: big, brassy pop anthems with huge, call and response choruses ... Sykes's voice sounds as good as ever, a deep, rich baritone that makes him sound far older than his 25 years ... Although it will sound perfect in the arenas of the land this summer, for those of us who were blown away by early tracks like Budapest and Cassy O, there’s a lot on this follow-up that plays a bit too safe.
John Murphy (musicomh.com)
Throughout “Staying at Mava's,” Sykes establishes himself as a talent as serious as his voice, while keeping the mood light.
Glenn Gamboa (Newsday)
Nico Sykes’s baritone is the voice of a storyteller — deep, resonant and expressive — but he should look harder for stories to tell.
Pablo Gorondi (Washington Post)
first i want to say that emma made me stay up for this it wasn't my idea
but jeeeeeezus mate
FUCKIN ACE ALBUM
i realise you may be thinking i didn't have time to listen to the whole thing in the ten minutes of friday we've had and u r right but u released half of it already so i skipped those
Are you ready?
Please be ready, we have at least four interviews this morning alone.
Also, have you spoken to/seen Zev? He's not answering me either.
Weird, that's not how I'd spell "congrats on the album, Nico. It's tracking well on social media, but let's go do some interviews to keep it up! Go team!"
Stop searching your name on Twitter!!!!
congrats, mate. we knew we pulled a blinder with this one. call me for number three, aye?
MUM SAYS I CAN COME 2 THE SHOW. ON MAVAS BIRTHDAY. SHE SAID I HAD TO MAKE SURE WITH YOU EVEN THO YOU ALREDY SAID IT WAS OK SHE SAYS MAKE SURE ITS OK IS IT OK????????????
Tell your mam I'm sure it's OK. See you next week, trouble.
🤪🤪🤪🤩🎧🎧🎧
WE HAVE THE ALBUM ON IN THE CAR
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🆒🆒🆒🆒
WE HAVE THE ALBUM ON IN THE CAR
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🆒🆒🆒🆒
Well done on the record. You did the right thing taking the time to make it right.