Jamie Beale reveals psychedelic debut album ‘Hello Nimbus’
Following up on the release of his critically acclaimed (BBC Radio 1, RTE, Ones To Watch) singles ‘Borderline’ and ‘King Godzilla’, songwriter Jamie Beale is pleased to reveal his debut album ‘Hello Nimbus’, is released right now.
Beale has an array of musical achievements under his belt; as vocalist and songwriter of Bristol-based rock band Novatines he’s toured the UK and Europe extensively and has received international radio play on BBC Radio 2, 6 and Radio X.
Self produced and engineered by Katie May from Real World Studios, Jamie wrote Hello Nimbus during the fall of the first Covid lockdown, after an extremely isolated period of his life. Inspired by the idea of escapism and running away to your own world, lyrically exploring and contemplating the loss of love, identity and purpose, but also what can emerge from this.
“Essentially it was me trying to remain positive during an absolute rollercoaster of change. Creatively it gave me such a fresh perspective. I wanted to jump out of my comfort zone and try something I’d never done before, so I toyed with different genres, singing styles and production; I wanted to self-produce a record and play most of the instruments heard on it. For me it was an experiment to see what my music sounded like when it was almost entirely self-contained, and to try and capture my imagination in audio form without any external influence.
“The title of the album sums up my own escapism. When I was a kid, I was constantly told I was in my own world and that my head was in the clouds. Hello Nimbus is my way of welcoming and embracing that side of myself”, Beale explains.
Prior to the album’s release came its third single ‘Champagne People’ on October 28th, a song about someone forgetting who they are, where they’ve come from and who their true friends are while pursuing success and fame.
Speaking about the inspiration for the single, Jamie says: “ I feel that we are living in this weird age where people are willing to do anything for fame. You see it all the time on social media – it’s so easy to put up a veil and hide all the realities and imperfections of life that ultimately make us human. Quite often, in these industries that promote the idea of fame as success, people surround themselves with an entourage of fake people; people that are only really there to further their own careers. On the outside looking in, it seems that no-one in these circles are truly content, but instead are lonely and looking to fill that void with possessions or short lived moments of attention and gratification.
“I guess I can’t help but feel for these people, so I wrote a song about someone who’s trying to climb the social ladder, and ends up alone, hiding behind a pretty picture of how they want their life to look.”