Nevertheless, Hilton’s brand-new Obsessions is a low-key though no less powerful contribution to the concept-album genre. Across 10 tracks, Hilton shares his experiences with childhood trauma and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
He’s joined by several H-Town luminaries, including Geoffrey Muller (bassist for The Suffers and Robert Ellis); Will Van Horn (pedal steel player for Khruangbin and Leon Bridges); Matt Serice (trumpet player for Bayou City Funk and Free Radicals); and Ellen Story (violinist for Slow Meadow and The Broken Spokes). For his part, Hilton is heard playing resonator guitar, dobro, steel-string acoustic guitar, banjo, and piano.
Throughout Obsessions, Hilton sings with a quiet urgency and a range of expression perhaps reminiscent of Jakob Dylan or Iron and Wine, but with a voice that is uniquely his own.
Hilton describes the album’s first two tracks as two halves of a whole: “Little Bayou Boy,” a bucolic homage to childhood, and “Blossom,” about his mother, Tracy Hall, in the throes of a psychotic episode. Hall, who died in 2010, was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child. In 2016, Hilton went to a screening of a documentary about schizophrenia, and was then inspired to finish “Blossom,” which he began at age 15 to express his conflicting feelings about his mother. “The next day, I sat with my guitar and strummed the first few chords of the song, and the first few lines of lyrics just came out effortlessly.”
Hilton has come to manage the debilitating symptoms of OCD with therapy, sessions with a licensed psychologist, and sticking to a daily routine that includes regular exercise and healthy eating.
While Hilton, who is indeed an archaeologist by day, doesn’t have immediate plans to perform Obsessions live, he can imagine eventually playing it at a house concert, with all of the musicians on the album as special guests. In the meantime, his next four-song EP drops early 2025.
Houston Grand Opera's Eleanor McCollum Competition for Youth Singers
Harry Winston dinner at Rienzi, The Public Art of the University of Houston System's An Evening with Frank Stella, Jorge Jiménez Deredia exhibit at Art of the World Gallery
The Memorial Park Conservancy's Picnic in the Park and Kick Up your Boots for Kids
A Couture Cause launch party, 2018 Men of Distinction announcement and a private shopping event at Valentino
The Wilshire opening and Hines’ Residences at La Colombe d’Or reveal
Junior League of Houston gala, The Good Samaritan gala, Seven Acres Jewish Care Services' gala
