‘I’M JESS BEING ME’
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In association with
CAMERA OBSCURA — LOOK TO THE EAST, LOOK TO THE WEST
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Fans can welcome back Glaswegian indie band Camera Obscura with their first album in 11 years.
They went on extended hiatus after the death of keyboardist
Carey Lander in 2015, addressed here in the ballad Sugar Almond
Recorded in the room where Queen wrote Bohemian Rhapsody, they dial down their tendency towards a reverb-drenched big
JESSICA PRATT — HERE IN THE PITCH
On her fourth album, Californian singersongwriter
Pratt is happy to be seen and heard in soft focus, her delicate, ethereal delivery stuck deep in the 60s.
There are wonderful sweet sha-la-las masking her bitterness sound.
String and brass arrangements are replaced by piano, synths, Hammond organ and understated drum machine.
Camera Obscura have sometimes been labelled “twee” by those not listening closely enough, but that’s never been true.
Their literate, sophisticated sound has been missed, and this sixth studio album will please old fans and should make many new ones.
8/10
on Better Hate.
A subtle samba guides Get Your Head Out, By Hook or By Crook is like Astrud Gilberto transported to Los Angeles and Life Is imagines
Phil Spector building his Wall of Sound around a softly cocooned Sibylle Baier.
8/10 “I’M not here to say sorry, I’m not here to say nothing, I’m just here to be me”, Jess Glynne’s soulful voice croons in the intro of her new album.
After a challenging few years personally and professionally, spent mostly out of the spotlight, the Grammy-winning singer is ensuring everyone is clear over her intention as she returns to the stage – to be unapologetically herself.
“I feel like I have been misunderstood and I think that’s something I don’t want to continue in my career,” the 34-year-old musician reflects.
“I want people to listen to my records and understand where they’ve come from, and understand the person that I am.”
Many artists hail each album as a “new era”, but for Glynne, her life has significantly shifted since she last released an album six years ago.
After she lost a close friend, a member of her team, she underwent a period of self-reflection. In this time, she realised she had grown into a different artist from the one who signed with Atlantic Records back in 2013 and so left the label and her management team.
She later found herself in pastures new at another major label, EMI, and secured management with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.
“I was absolutely terrified,” she admits about taking the plunge of cutting ties with her previous teams and carving out a new path.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ Massive moments of doubt, massive moments of fear because I was all alone. I’d no one in my career supporting me at that point.”
She reveals there were several points during the past four years where she considered quitting the music industry due to the “way it made me feel, the pure slog, the scrutiny”.
But her devoted love of music continually drew her back in.
“The amount that I’ve put in and the selfbelief and the fight and the battles [I’ve gone through with] myself and with people around me to get to where I am, I was like, ‘Nah man, you can’t throw it all away’,” she recalls.
By this stage, the north London-bornand-raised musician had already created an impressive legacy. She first broke through in 2013 as the voice on Clean Bandit’s Rather Be, which became a global hit and took home a Grammy for best dance recording.
Her husky tone with a distinctive vibrato continued to produce number one singles on collaborations with Tinie Tempah, Rudimental and Route 94, before she went on to release her 2015 debut studio album I Cry When I Laugh.
It shot to the top of the charts thanks to club bops Hold My Hand and Don’t Be So
Hard On Yourself which both went to number one. Her second album in 2018 was another platinum-selling chart-topper, bolstered by earworm I’ll Be There.
Now motivated with a new team behind her, Glynne is releasing her long-awaited third album which she has created over the last four years, titled Jess.
“It’s a very honest, vulnerable record that’s just telling stories and evoking pure emotion,” she explains.
Following the Intro, the album opens with Silly Me, a soulful tune which reflects on past mistakes. She bookends the 15-track record with another deep exploration on Promise
Me, a stripped-down ballad where she
■ REDDY TO GO: Jess Glynne seeks reassurance. However, it is the catchy midtempo track Enough which seems to encapsulate the message of the record as she sings in the chorus: “I’m more than enough.”
“When I wrote that song, I think it was just highlighting, this is me being me unapologetic and being honest and being raw and I think that’s just how I need to lead,” she says.
“And to stop pressuring myself to be this artist or be that artist or regurgitate a song like this or be something from our past.
“Through the process of leaving my previous label, my previous teams and everything that’s gone on in my personal life as well, the more that time’s gone on and things have happened, and the more that I’ve been challenged... the only thing I can do when I go in the studio and when I write is be me. And I think that’s why I called it Jess.”
Jess Glynne’s third studio album Jess is out now.