Acclaimed Scottish musician Jamie Sutherland has just released his new single ‘Start Again’, and announces a new solo album The World As It Used To Be, out in September 2024 via Frictionless Music.
Fresh from promoting the latest Broken Records album released at the end of last year, frontman Jamie Sutherland is once again venturing out on his own, having released his debut solo album Bruise back in 2020. Now, he has announced its follow-up, The World As It Used To Be, which will be due out in September 2024. Its lead single ‘Start Again’, is out on 7th June, a sprightly and stunning folk track that is rich with a captivating musicality, reminiscent of classic American songs of yesteryear.
Speaking about the track, Jamie describes it as ‘A love song, a story song and a character song, some based on people I know and some imagined. The song has a wide-open feel to it with plenty of momentum, and I wanted the subject to feel as such. I wanted the characters to feel like they were moving, escaping from something. When writing the song, I definitely had the wide-open spaces of America pictured, so the lyric and the arrangement were created with that in mind.’
‘Start Again’ is only the beginning – having grown up listening to the likes of Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers, Jamie has always had an affinity with the Greenwich Village scene of New York and the songwriters synonymous with the area. With time away from Broken Records during the pandemic, he began writing songs with focus on the melody and lyrics, growing from a collection of stripped-back bare-bones songs to a beautiful and classic-sounding album. With mixing carried out by Tony Doogan (who has worked with Broken Records on numerous occasions) and mastering by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios, the tone of the record is one that Jamie feels remains true to where the songs came from.
He explains: ‘I self-consciously wanted to write an adult record, in the style of John Prine, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen’s later work, and as I have gotten (a little) older, I have found myself gravitating to songs which talk with the sense of experience that I was starting to feel. That things aren’t black and white, good and bad, ecstatic or despairing, that there is nuance in everything and detail is most important – all with the knowledge that in understanding a little there was so much more to learn.’
Jamie Sutherland is an acclaimed singer and songwriter, who over a 17-year career as frontman of critically lauded Broken Records (4AD, Jsharp) and through his own acclaimed solo work, has carved a name as one of Scotland’s most distinctive voices.
Formed in 2006, Broken Records signed to 4AD in 2008 and released two albums, “Until The Earth Begins to Part “(2009) and “Let Me Come Home” (2010) to critical success. After a sustained period of touring under their own steam, alongside supporting bands such as The National, The Black Keys, Editors, Frightened Rabbit, Plan B, Midlake and Efterklang, the band set up their own imprint, Jsharp Records, releasing “Weights and Pulleys” (2014), “What We Might Know” (2018) and after the disruption of the pandemic, “The Dreamless Sleep of the 1990’s” (2023).
Realising that he was writing more music than could ever be used for Broken Records, songs featuring a totally different, more relaxed and pared back folk sound, Sutherland released his first solo record “Bruise” in 2020 to critical acclaim, having originally written and recorded it in 2017 with support from a backing group of musicians, friends and colleagues around the Edinburgh musical community including members of Meursault, Eagleowl and Stanley Odd.
Having signed to Frictionless Music, Sutherland started recording “The World As It Used To Be” with longstanding producer and collaborator Garry Boyle in Slate Room Studios intermittently in January 2021, backed by his Broken Records bandmates. The final sessions took place a year later in September 2022 with the addition of strings co-arranged by acclaimed musician Seonaid Aitken and then mastered by another long term collaborator Tony Doogan at Castle of Doom Studios. The album was finally mastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios. Following a break to focus on the release of the fifth Broken Records album, “The Dreamless Sleep of the 1990’s”, Sutherland is excited to release “The World As It Used To Be” into the world.
Sutherland also works as Creative Director of the Rural Arts organization SEALL, and for the last ten years has been the founder of Nothing Ever Happens Here and Music Programme Manager at Edinburgh’s seminal Summerhall Arts Venue.
-Official bio
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