Jamie Woon - Mirrorwriting

hmm

oh you

jesus the vocal on gravity is just beautiful. i find this genuinely exciting.

Really, until further notice, this is my favorite album of the year.

The leak is only 128k right?

not a dud on it. really accomplished song writing. great vocals & production. wow!

Really, until further notice, this is my favorite album of the year.

Like, I get as excited listening to this as I did by Portishead's Third and that remained my favorite album for all of 2008.

i really enjoyed this when i listened to it. hangovers help, yes

I'm intrigued and all but the one thing nobody's said much on the thread is...exactly who is this guy? Meaning did "Night Air" come out of nowhere or had he already been building a rep?

he was a guardian reader folk singer i think, his version of wayfaring stranger got a big hyped burial remix around the time of the first burial album and then this collab

From what I gather, he'd been toiling in obscurity for a couple years before Burial agreed to work with him on "Night Air" and then he went FULL AWESOME and now can't be stopped.

i'd heard of him a while before that, just as a random soul singer about town doing vox on uk urban underground tunes (like fatima, ahu etc) - this actually remains one of his finest tracks imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dw1PTtu2dE

idk if i'd call it toiling in obscurity, as with katy b i think he always meant to build up to this - what both of them did for a few years prior to their breakthrough was more like build up a portfolio

Your ear is closer to the ground in that sector than a lot of us, though. I had no idea who he was until about six months ago.

i actually had read about him in the guardian but w/e

dude just has an awesome, distinct voice & some solid songwriting chops

sometimes i get kind of worried the song is gonna veer into barely-there territory but he'll save it w/ a little melodic flourish

i've been aware of him since 'wayfaring stranger' a few years ago (although i assumed it was part of an album, not just a single). at the time i figured he was the next jamie cullum or whatever, who was lucky or had enough $ to get a burial remix.

immaculate album but i must reiterate i strongly feel 'middle' is the track that resolves the whole

gonna give it a day and hope no one else dares in the meantime in case i clown myself with the proclamation i was just about to make

is Middle the last track? I sort my library by date added so i generally listen to albums 'backwards' since the last track is the most recently imported. I always hear Middle first. Don't love it but it don't mind it either.

No, middle is the fifth track - scroll up in this thread about two weeks for the tracklist (just above tge cover artwork)

tge -> the

when's the official release date for this?

April 11th I think.

dude was supposed to play toronto w/ mt. kimbie on friday but dropped out at the last minute. i'm not sure about why he couldn't make it, but it's a shame because i was really looking forward to hearing what he's like live.

Yeah, Montreal was supposed to be last night but he bailed. Between that and the cancelled Kingdom/Girl Unit/Bok Bok gig Friday I am less than pleased.

ok so this is much better than I expected it to be - still not convinced by "lady luck" but anyone who's heard the early acoustic versions of "spiral" and "gravity" knows that these versions are so much improved with the electronic flourishes. amazing sound.

(srsly, "Gravity" = sexxx)

It's growing on me and I apologise to James Blake and Jamie Woon for comparing them with each other (even though I still get the same feeling from their albums).

i've still never knowingly heard any james blake (i'm sure lex understands this - my reluctance basically stems from the fact that blake shares the same name as one of our least favourite american tennis players).

it opened the door for the "as overrated as his tennis namesake" line for me! and the observation that james blake (producer)'s rise to prominence coincided exactly with james blake (tennis player) falling out of the top 100...

I'm not sure if I like this... the beats and textures I love but something about it sounding like Phil Collins at his most new-agey is off-putting for me.

^^It's all about the beats/texture for me - one of the reasons i wasn't so looking forward to this initially was due to hearing his earlier stuff, some of which which were sub-Buckley at best. The production totally redeems the corniness imo.

the cancelled Kingdom/Girl Unit/Bok Bok gig Friday

coulda told you this was coming due to Austin cancellations a couple weeks ago :/

Oh, I mean. I knew it got cancelled a couple of weeks ago. I just meant that once Night Slugs got visa-issue cancelled, Woon was my backup plan for the weekend.

ahhh gotcha

"Middle" is fantastic.

"lady luck" is much better in album context

Yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfDbEQAfOY

Old version of 'Spirits', which is kind of awesome. Curious if the live show leans more towards this kind of thing or if the backing tracks just get played over the soundsystem.

he has a full live band, if that helps?

something about it sounding like Phil Collins at his most new-agey

finally someone is selling this thing

I'm not sure I'm feeling this. It definitely has its moments, 'Night Air' obviously, 'Middle' and 'Spirits' but as a whole it feels kinda tepid and gloopy. The production is nice enough (although the "tasteful dubstep wobble" can fuck off now, especially when paired with acoustic guitar) but I'm not sure the songwriting is really consistent throughout.

Biggest problem is his voice though - he sings almost everything in the same way. Which is forgiveable in technically limited voices but Jamie can sing. Maybe "being able to sing" isn't enough if you don't really have much conception of phrasing or dynamics, but I'd like him to reach for something more than "pleasant" most of the time. No tension or drama. It's not even that he's 'tasteful', I listened to Maxwell immediately afterwards and it sounded elemental, and that's not JUST because Maxwell is a superior singer technically, he knows how to phrase and deliver a lyric for emotional impact, and Jamie Woon on this evidence doesn't.

comparing him with maxwell is stacking the deck a bit

not that i might not end up agreeing overall

comparing him with maxwell is stacking the deck a bit

Yeah I think I've acknowledged that in saying that Maxwell is obviously a much better vocalist technically (and most vocalists would suffer in comparison) but my issue isn't with the quality of Jamie's voice but the use he puts it to - like I said phrasing and dynamics.

haha i think my point remains

Okay he'd suffer in comparison to a Ne-Yo or someone as well. I'm not saying "the problem is that he's not as good as Maxwell", I'm saying "on this evidence the problem is that his voice has limited emotional range".

That's what I like about Woon's singing - he avoids hollerholler emoting and goes for a beguilingly streamlined take. This simple legibility is part of the reason why he rings through the slightly muffled and distorted backing so well.

ne-yo and maxwell are hardly hollerers!

True, that was carried over from a discussion I was just having in real life.

Maxwell doesn't holler, he's fusspot instead - not that I don't love him.