The
Magic Lantern

This is how my brain often feels when i go in search of inspiration. I’m looking for something in particular but i can’t find it so I take out all the little boxes with scraps, ideas, notes, melodies and pictures until i find what i’m looking for or give up. Either way, lots of little boxes are left upturned all over the floor, waiting to patiently be put back in their place – one day.

Bagley-Clifford Office of the National Bank of Detroit by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre

Please forgive how long its been since my last update but here we are – sneezing with hayfever, dodging summer rain showers and desperately trying to do our best, whatever that is and however it works out.

Whilst I may have been quite on the update front, things have been bubbling away. I’ve writing some new tunes with Fly Agaric for a EP we’ll be recording soon, playing some lovely gigs, teaching small children the piano, giving some singing workshops, hosting the Nest Collective Hour radio show with Sam Lee on Resonance FM (you can hear last weeks show here) and tune int tomorrow lunch time 12-1 for the last in the current series!), and getting things together to record the second Magic Lantern album in August.

The weather not withstanding, there are some great Magic Lantern gigs coming up over the next 6 weeks, starting in London tomorrow in London with a great double bill i’ll be doing with Dee Byrne’s Entropi at the Albany in Great Portland St. From there i’ll be heading to Glastonbury where i’ll be playing on The Bandstand with The Ballina Whalers on the wednesday evening (7.15pm) and then as Magic Lantern on saturday morning at 11.30am and then later in the evening at a few venues, check the twitter for updates. Then there are few days to recover and ill be keeping it in the south west with a great show at The Leftbank in Bristol organised by good friend Leonie Evans. Finally, the last gig before the album recording will be at Cambridge Folk Festival at the Den Stage where i’ll be doing one off collaboration with Sam Brookes.

Hope to see you somewhere along the way and come say hi on the facebook page or on twitter. I’m going to start posting some more demos of the tunes that will be on the album over the next month so there’ll be some new things to hear as well!

Magic Lantern – Summer Series

25 June – ‘Collisions No.2’ at The Albany, London w/ Dee Byrne’s Entropi
29 June – Glastonbury Festival – The Bandstand
4 July – The Leftbank, Bristol
28 July – Cambridge Folk Festival (The Den Stage), Cambridge

August – ALBUM RECORDING! Woo hoo!!

big big love

Jamie x
                                                 

Due to unforseen circumstances the gig i’m doing tonight supporting the wonderful Cocos Lovers has had to relocate to The Slaughtered Lamb – 34-35 Great Sutton St London, EC1V 0DX. (Nearest station is still Farringdon) Featuring Cocos Lovers The Magic Lantern and Sam Brookes it should be a really lovely night. So sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you and hope to see you all there later! J x

I was writing a letter to a friend today and thought one section of it I’d like to share more widely:

One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is the creeping domination of irony in the way we express ourselves in our culture. Irony isn’t itself a bad thing and used judiciously can be a great comedic and rhetorical tool, but I think without necessarily being aware of it, we’ve arrived at a place where the ironically raised eyebrow is the default response to any act of emotional honesty. I think as a result, most people are excruciatingly uncomfortable when they are confronted by real and raw emotions, what things really mean and how they affect us.  We deflect anything serious with a joke, or change the subject or roll our eyes – and we pretend that everything is going to be alright when sometimes its not.

As a person as well as a songwriter, this is something I struggle with all the time. Trying to have the balls to be honest where it might be exposing or embarrassing or painful and putting it out there to essentially be judged, when such a big part of why I’m a performer, consciously or unconsciously, is to get some external validation that perhaps things will be alright – in essence, to be loved.  And while this isn’t a wholly healthy state of affairs, when it does come, its only from a moment of real sharing – when however roughly hewn my attempt at saying something which means a lot to me, connects with someone else long enough to meet somewhere in the middle. In that way, the whole performance is an exchange and one from which, at its best, we both leave better for it.

This I guess is a long way ‘round to say that however much my songs may mean/have meant to you – knowing they’ve meant something to you in your life, on your own terms, means as much to me.

big love

Jx

I am very happy to announce the dates for the upcoming ‘SPRING’S LABOUR’S LOST’ tour I will be doing with the mighty FaceOmeter. As some of you will remember, I went on tour with FaceOmeter last November and it was so much fun we decided to do it all again! What this tour lacks in sensibly planned consecutive dates we make up for by having both Falmouth and Newcastle in the same tour which clearly goes to show that our geographical ambitions are growing! I hope that we will passing near enough to all of you to see you at one of the gigs!

We are really excited to be launching the tour in London at one of my favorite venues for intimate music, The Harrison, in Kings Cross on Friday 26 April. Its a really small, but beautiful space for live music and I strongly recommend getting tickets in advance (5 quid). In addition to FaceOmeter and I there will be a very special guest who will be playing…More details about each of the gigs can be found by clicking on them below.

‘Spring’s Labour’s Lost’ Tour – April/May 2013

• 26/4 – LONDON – The Harrison – Tickets
• 29/4 – BIRMINGHAM – Lamp Tavern
• 30/4 – OXFORD – Albion Beatnik
• 4/5 – NEWCASTLE – Shadow and Star
• 8/5 – LONDON – Wilmington Arms* (supporting Cocos Lovers)
• 9/5 – FALMOUTH – The Grapes
• 10/5 – BRISTOL – Café Kino

*without FaceOmeter

You can read FaceOmeter words about our excitement on his blog.
http://www.faceometer.tk/new-dates/

best wishes and big love

Jamie x

Painting by Chloe Paull

Here’s as demo of a new song i’ve been working on for the past week ‘Harvest Moon’. I made a demo of it at home and thought i’d share it as I haven’t posted any new music for a while! Looking forward to playing it live for the first time at the Shine Like The Sun EP launch tomorrow at the Ritzy in Brixton, London.

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