Hello dear friends. My album is out on streaming services - please, go forth and stream it to your hearts content:
https://open.spotify.com/track/59ZspYzJJf1vR8FMzNWDWJHeck, why not leave it on loop overnight so I can feed the algorithm my goodies?
I've got a video for one of my favourite songs off the album, coming out on my Youtube at 7pm GMT. If you are available, I would love it if you could join and we can watch and experience it together.
This song ended up as something a little different to my usual frenetically self-aware up-tempo funk bangers. I woke up one morning with the chorus lyric and melody to this straight-up pop megalith very clearly in my head. In the dream people were doing an entrancing little dance and everything. And yes, I am aware of the cliché that ‘it came to me in a dream’ usually holds the subtext ‘I probably stole it from a busker I heard on the street’. But this felt like a form of inspiration I had not before experience and something about it felt kind of catchy, so I started putting it down in the morning.
I ended up doing the whole song in a day - lyrics and production. I’ve never done this before, I’m usually a finicky little detail-obsessive, but the spirits of the forest had whipped up an all-you-can-eat buffet and was ready to gorge. When I was finished with the song, I listened to it a few times and sniffed out an idea for a video. I just went with the first thing that came to me, which felt like it should be a druid being kind of cheeky. This is the polar opposite way to how I usually write stuff and it was a refreshing process. I do hope you like the result.
I wanted to give you all some behind the scenes from shooting the video for it. I filmed almost all of it by myself on top of a mountain. It was so cold that the camera could only film in short bursts before shutting down. This meant I had to press record, sprint 50m over 5 inches of snow, do my little dance, and get back to hit stop before the camera crashed (as witnessed in the above behind the scenes clip). It was a hell of a time, and I ended up looking like I had totally lost my mind. In many ways I think I had.
At one point I was dressed in a full druid robe and I heard some footsteps approaching, so I crouched down so as not to scare the passing civilian. Unfortunately I forgot I had left my rucksack and clothes strewn across the floor beside the path. As I heard the footsteps stop it became very clear that this man was going to think someone had stripped naked and run off into the woods. I realised I needed to avoid him calling the police so I stood up in full druid robe from behind a tree stump and we had a brief but polite conversation. He expressed interest in the video, and gave off a perhaps justifiable air of mild suspicion. But I think you’ll agree he could never have foreseen the exquisite beauty promised by the end product.
I hope you all enjoy the fruits of my labour this year. What I love more than anything is writing groovy tunes and I feel genuinely honoured that so many people are connecting with them.
JE Loves U xx