Jamie Lawson releases his heartfelt 5-track EP Moving Images on May 29th via Lookout Mountain Records. The first single ‘She Sings For Me’ will be available on April 10th 2020 stream/buy here.
The delicate collection of songs, the majority of which, was recorded by Jamie at his home studio before being mixed by Tim Ross. Speaking about the record, Jamie said “This EP feels like a new chapter for me, the beginning of the next phase. With the need for full length albums being less and less, I suspect I’ll do more of these types of releases, small collections of songs that we can hopefully tour around and keep active with.”
Originally written in a panic as a present for his wife on their first anniversary after the present he had organised hadn’t arrived, the opening song ‘A Perfect Year’ is a sentimental ballad with stunning string melodies and Jamie’s distinctive emotive delivery. The song was never intended to feature on a record but “the more I played it the more I liked it and thought maybe others would too” he explains. It serves as a fantastic opener that’s even more impressive when you consider how quickly it had to be written; Jamie recalls that his wife had “nipped to Tesco the day before our anniversary” and he managed to bind it together in a short time.
The EP comes during a time of profound difficulty but, thanks to the international language of music, Jamie hopes that it can perhaps provide some optimism for listeners, “I think the ‘She’ in ‘She Sings For Me’ is music and how it’s always there for you whatever mood you’re in. It’ll always give you comfort and understanding, at least that’s what I was trying to say.”
The final track on the EP ‘Closure’ was written with acclaimed songwriter/producer Jez Ashurst. Having worked together in the past, both musicians quickly forecast the direction in which the song should go, which Jamie denotes as happening by “channelling the craftsmanship of Tom Petty”. The song was quickly recorded to capture the creative magic between the two, with Jamie affirming “What you hear is what was recorded the day we wrote it, I didn’t want to change a thing.”
The exceptional writing on this EP makes it clear why Jamie was the first signing to Ed Sheeran’s label Gingerbread Man Records. In the same year as his signing (2015), Jamie released his self-titled third album, featuring the international hit ‘Wasn’t Expecting That’, which has to this day been streamed over 250 million times. In 2016 Jamie was awarded an Ivor Novello Award for ‘Best Song Musically and Lyrically’, which he followed with his fourth album in 2017 called Happy Accidents. Jamie spent the start of 2018 in Nashville further expanding his songwriting toolbox, and the remainder of the year on a stadium tour with Ed Sheeran using his downtime to write new music. When the pieces had fallen together, he bunkered down in a multitude of international recording studios including La Frette just outside Paris – which had recorded the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Nick Cave – before heading to Dublin to co-produce 2019’s ‘The Years In Between’ with Ruadhri Cushnan (Mumford & Sons, Shaun Mendes, Tom Walker, Ed Sheeran).
In the absence of tours, Jamie will be performing live streamed concerts via his Instagram page. See his socials for regular updates as to the performance timings.
