James Thomson is back.
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One of Newcastle's favourite musical sons, Thomson is back on stage, playing some new music from his soon-to-be released third album.
Thomson played the Stag & Hunter last Friday, and made an appearance at Dashville's intimate Saturday night gathering. This Sunday he plays at the Grand Junction Hotel in Maitland.
Thomson went into Union Street Studio in Melbourne in early 2018 and laid down 12 songs in six days, playing with a top group of Melbourne musicians, as well as his guitar mate Marty Burke. He wanted a new approach to recording, and he got it.
Only months later, he decided to back away from finalising the project.
"I didn't have the fire to desperately put it out," he says. It's just come back in the last two-three months."
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While Thomson made a concerted effort to write new material, and commit to the recording project, the pace of life picked up quite quickly after that again. He was working 45 hours a week and completing his final year of university study.
Something had to give way.
"I sort of intentionally had a break," he says. "I made a promise with myself I wouldn't tour, i wouldn't book anything, until I had made that next step with releasing something."
"Because it's something very important to me, I found it hard to give myself a break, give myself some leeway. You work 45 hours a week, do uni . . . hey, there's no great rush with this. It's recorded. It's done.
"It took a while to make peace with that. It's alright. Obviously, you want to get it out . . . you get questions from people, 'when's your album coming out? It creates this vortex, 'oh shit, I've got to do this!'.
"But actually, i don't have to. I will do it when i'm good and ready, when I'm able to do it properly. I think this is the best record I've made and i don't want to do it half-arsed."
Thomson released the first single, Desire, from the forthcoming album, last week. It's got his trademark alt country vibe front and centre, a slow burner that you can' get out of your head once heard.
His looser approach to recording, as in working up his songs with a group of musicians who were learning the songs cold, reflects his confidence in the lyrics.
"Life stopped being a big scary mystery," he says of the change in his spirit of writing. "It's a happier, simpler life. I don't know if the songs are more reflective of that, in a homespun, funky blues kind of vibe to them. I'm not sure. I don't question it. I just put the antenna up there, and whatever comes, I write it down."
He clear in stating what his songwriting means to him: "My job, as I see it is to highlight the inexpressible things for other people."
The album, tentatively titled Golden City Exile, is likely to be released in November. It will be Thomson's third long player.
"It's been four years since the last album," he says. "I'm looking forward to it, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy the ride."
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