Every now and again an artist arrives fully formed, filling a gap in your music listening habits that you didn’t even realise was there. With his finely balanced mix of cynicism and pain, M. T. Hadley is one of those artists.

Emerging in the summer of 2016 with the track Janet, he attracted the attention of Frank Ocean, who played the song on his much-lauded blonded RADIO. Suddenly elevated from obscurity Hadley did the opposite of what you might expect an aspiring musician to do with that co-sign: nothing. Rather than rushing to release an EP or another song, Hadley waited the best part of three years to share new music. Instead, he collaborated with the likes of Nilüfer Yanya, Vegyn and Bullion, only emerging back into the world earlier this year with first single proper Rattle, a track written to warn a newborn baby just how awful life can be.

That sense of deliberate pomposity and pessimism runs through the vast majority of Hadley’s music, which sees him cast an almost nihilistic gaze over anything that should have the misfortune to wander in front of him. Strangely enough though, there’s also a sense of naivety – and dare we say affection – in Hadley’s work. This crops up often in his videos, all of which contain subtitled stories that expand on the words created within his songs. The combined effect can be funny, unsettling and moving in equal measure.

Ahead of the release of his debut album Empty on Friday (8 November), today M. T. Hadley shares the video for Janet – the track that started it all. Named for and written after the passing of his mother, to say it’s disarming would be an understatement. Shot in Cornwall at the holiday home where Hadley and Janet would spend the summer, the video shares intimate details of his childhood, poking holes in Hadley’s carefully created aesthetic with devasting effect.

We caught up with Hadley to chat about the song’s creation, his adopted cynicism and his favourite track on Empty. Watch the premiere below and read on for our interview.