Sophie Jamieson – Forward (self-released)
After 5 years away from music Sophie Jamieson has returned with new release Forward, an introspective folk pop single filled with vulnerability and hope.
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Artist: Sophie Jamieson
Track: Forward
Label: Self-released
Released: 11 August 2020
Find it: Spotify
No storm lasts forever but those who ride the roughest ways will come through it ever changed. Something that Sophie Jamieson may know only too well, as on new single Forward she finds a way to calmly float through the wreckage and emerge from her own storm a different version of the same person.
It was a 22-year-old that Jamieson emerged on the music scene and started garnering attention for her songwriting and delicate musical touch. Praise was won but seemingly as soon as the momentum began to build it came to a crashing halt. Behind the scenes she’d had a breakdown and self-destructive habits were took hold for the next five years.
Until here we are, with her emerging from that dark period, resolved in who she is and what she wants to say. On Forward the music box hypnotic melody is the measured calm of someone slowly sealing up their broken parts with molten gold. The clear ring vocal doesn’t shy from the vulnerability of hoping to move forward into the light, and which lyrically captures the duality of depressive feelings with subtlety and grace.
With careful production from Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, Denai Moore, Lazy Day) the track remains sparse and full of space, echoing with loneliness and a barely-there heart beat, as woozy melody slowly rises and percussion begins to dance with the vocal line. Throughout it has the feel of a person putting themselves back together, of thought-lost parts returning to make a whole again.
‘Light as a feather / a stone somehow’
About the track she said, “Forward is about trying to find some control amid chaos. My instinct for years had been to deny that a period of time had happened, to empty myself of its trace – but at this point, I began to understand that I could accept it, that it is part of who I am and that I do not have to destroy the evidence of my past in order to move forward”.
The single comes from an EP, Release, due in December. This too comes from an intensely personal place and reflects honestly, and at times bleakly, on Jamieson’s own experiences. She said, “Release was written during one of the loneliest periods of my life. Becoming disconnected from those close to me, I searched for connection blindly, drinking past blackout and getting myself into trouble. The next day I would find a way to punish myself. It was a vicious circle. ”
Forward is out now on all digital platforms. EP Release is set to follow in December.
Find Sophie Jamieson: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp
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Sarah Lay
A long-standing music journalist she's also co-founder of independent record label Reckless Yes, an author of novels, and when not messing around with words and music, a digital strategist.
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