Sophie Jamieson: ‘I think matters of the heart are top of most of our minds’ – The Yorkshire Post

Published 21st Jan 2025, 11:45 GMT

Aptly called I Still Want To Share, it’s out now on Bella Union Records, home of such artists as John Grant, Father John Misty and Beach House.

Talking to The Yorkshire Post via video, Jamieson remembers Choosing as being a “transitional time” in her life. “I’d stopped playing music for a number of years and then came back and threw myself in, but I sort of had to start again from scratch,” she says.

For the first time she had a team around her after signing to Bella Union, who in turn helped her find her a booking agent for gigs. “It made things look more professional and helped bring in some momentum,” she says. “Since then I’ve tried to honour that by making a decent follow-up and tried to figure out how to sustain making good music amidst managing to survive. I was learning how to balance everything, and mostly failing. I’m still trying to work it out; it’s my life’s work.”

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Juggling a day job with making music hasn’t been easy, she admits. “I imagined there’d be a tipping point where it brings in more than it costs, but it’s starting to dawn on me this year that I don’t think that will ever be the case,” she says matter-of-factly. “(2024) has been a year of coming to terms with that and what that means with how I approach everything from writing to my day job to how I treat myself these days. I think it’s a balacing act that all artists have to constantly go through.”

Having to be involved in all aspects of a project has brought about a change in her writing, Jamieson feels. “Until this time I’ve been mostly focused on what’s happening within. Something within that has been changing recently and that’s been difficult to figure out how to write. It’s a weird time,” she says.

I Still Want To Share is an album about love and what compels us to forge relationships with other people. “I think matters of the heart are top of most of our minds,” she says. “Even if we don’t acknowledge it, I think it’s probably one of the most significant sources of our sense of self and our sense of grounding and our sense of existential acceptance in some ways. I’ve just noticed that more and more over the last few years and between writing and recording this record it’s been a process of learning to understand and accept that.

“How steady I feel from one minute to another is enormously impacted by how I feel in relation to the people around me, in all kinds of relationships. I guess it’s also been an interesting way of noticing and accepting my own sensitivity in general, and how much it moves the way I move through each day.

“There was a time a few years ago where I thought I’m in therapy and I’m writing and I understand some things. I guess at some point soon I’m just going to steady and be less rocked by everything. As time’s gone on I’ve only felt more fragile in some respects and I realise that it’s less a matter of learning how not to be affected by a relationship and environment, and learning to notice how things make you feel and just be OK with it. But it’s taken until very recently to start to learn that.”

During the making of this album, Jamieson says she learnt that she “really struggle(s) with letting go of control in many areas, including within relationships but also very much in the recording process”. It was her producer Guy Massey, who has previously worked with Spiritualized, The Divine Comedy, Richard Hawley and Kylie Minogue, who encouraged her to take a step back.

“My producer, Guy was amazing in so many ways, and he also pushed me to let go of certain things (but) I really struggled with that,” she says. “I understand now for the next one I’d really like to lean into that even further and push myself to let go even more. Maybe slightly without realising, I think this record was trying to control people to some extent and trying to get answers out of them, trying to know where you stand in relation to them and where they’re going to be when you need them.

“There was a moment in the middle of recording where I realised that some of this was playing out in the studio. I also had some issues with my voice in the middle of the recording process where I was experiencing a lot of anxiety following a break-up and I was finding that I got really hyper-focused on what was happening in my throat and I had to work through that while recording and learn to trust myself to let go of trying to squeeze everything so hard and make sure I hit every note. I think there was a few layers of that lesson to learn.”

I Still Want To Share is out now. Sophie Jamieson plays an instore show at Jumbo Records on January 23 at 5pm. https://sophiejamieson.com/