Clubhouse Records is to release the second album by their newest signing, David Banks, on Friday 25th September. The new album, All The Dreams We Left Behind, is the follow-up to Banks’s 2019 debut, Until the End. Danny Tipping, co-founder of Clubhouse Records, said: “Dave has firmly established his credentials as one of the finest musicians on the UK Americana scene, first as part of The Whybirds and then through his work as a sideman for Luke Tuchscherer, Danny & The Champions of the Word, Danni Nicholls, Hannah Scott and many more, but this long-awaited second album provides us with a timely reminder of what a fantastic singer/songwriter he is.”

The ten-track album was recorded and produced by Banks at his Little Record Recording Studio in Bedfordshire and features him on every instrument other than drums, which have been handled by his longtime friend and collaborator Luke Tuchscherer. Banks says he can’t wait for people to hear the finished result. “Recording this album nearly entirely by myself in my own studio was a massive challenge, but it meant I could realise the exact sound I was hearing in my head. Having these songs finally come to life with Clubhouse in my corner is hugely exciting, and I can’t wait for people to crank it up loud.”

Tristan Tipping, co-founder of Clubhouse Records, said: “We’re really excited to be supportingDave with this new release. He’s a close friend and a phenomenal player, but more importantly it’sa truly brilliant record. Dave spends a lot of time making other musicians and bands look goodand it’s his turn to take centre stage and showcase his excellent songwriting.”

Banks’s last album drew critical acclaim. Rock N Reel’s four-star review said it was “music that reminds me why I liked rock music when I first heard it all those years ago. In Banks’s hands rock still sounds passionate and fresh,” while this site said “big, honest Americana in the mould of Petty and Springsteen” amongst other things.

Clubhouse, in collaboration with the Ramblin’ Roots Revue, is hosting an album launch party at the Venue in High Wycombe on 19 September, where David Banks & The Loose Change will be playing songs from the new record. Support comes from duos Hannah White & Kieron Marshall, Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou, and Pete Gow & Jim Maving. Tickets available here.  Here’s the single Runaway With Me My Love:

Strong collection of road songs on first for new label.

Leon Majcen is the son of Bosnian refugees who grew up in Safety Harbour, Florida, before relocating to Nashville in 2023. He has four independently released albums in his catalogue. The Leaving Kind represents his first release for Nashville label Cloverdale. The album was produced by Pat Lyons, who also contributed mandolin, lead guitar, pedal steel, banjo, and dobro. Other supporting musicians included Lee Williams (bass, vocals), John Venezia (drums), Chris Hurst (piano, organ) and Annabel Dwyer (vocals).

Majcen’s background provides a bedrock of perspective and determination to his work. As he puts it: “Growing up as an immigrant, my whole life, I’ve watched my parents work jobs they hated,” says Majcen. “I think it’s why they always pushed me to chase my dreams. Getting to a position where I can help my family out has always been a big motivator.” It’s also visible in his touring commitments and the fifty thousand miles plus he spends on the road each year.

Majcen’s sound covers a wide range of styles over the album’s ten tracks and 33 minutes. The record opens with Slowing Me Down dropping in languidly with guitars and pedal steel as Majcen sings of the twin pulls of the partner left at home and playing his music on the road. There’s a world-weary feel to the vocal. Falling Short starts at a jauntier pace with some barroom piano and an uncredited fiddle performance, but is a further riff on being on the road. Road Dog Express features acoustic guitar and vocal as Majcen lays out a more philosophical and bluesy take on the travelling life. The song features some sweet dobro and a mournful harmonica. A big funky beat and horns lead into Turn Me In, in which the song’s narrator is a more dissolute character with several dodgy connections. He sings of his lover: “she turns me on/I just hope she don’t turn me in”. Fifth track and likely side 1 closer is Don’t You Cry, where Majcen’s voice has a rough edge, singing softly. A pedal steel bedded verse drops into a descending chorus. A fiddle adds pathos as Majcen returns to the theme of the road and relationships, and the contrasting emotions due to each.

Float On Down opens side 2 and communicates a hot, sultry day when Majcen and friend are heading out fishing. With a low-key organ underlying the guitars, he takes on a slow trip to the fishing hole. As the song draws to a close, his thoughts turn to being old and looking back. The next song is Honey Bee, another up-tempo tune with a blues feel and some tasty acoustic slide guitar; Majcen almost talks his vocals. The piano and guitar play off one another in the break. Keep You Off My Mind packs an awful lot of lyric into a song that comes in under three minutes. It starts with Majcen leaving the road for the love of his life. As close to a country song as there is on The Leaving Kind. It’s another song enhanced by the fiddle. The ninth song on the album is Long Way Home, which opens with a wistful vocal and lonesome fiddle. The narrator is a cowboy who travels from town to town; Colorado, Texas and Alberta are referenced, but finds himself thinking of home. The closer and title track rolls in on a full backing of rhythm section, guitars and pedal steel. Lyrically, it returns to the theme of being on the road and never staying in the same place for very long. He’s troubled by doubts this is the right life for him. Majcen’s vocal ups a register into the chorus: “I was born the leaving kind/ Don’t take kindly to a world I like /And I’ll go down swinging till my head falls off.”

Majcen has, by all accounts, been getting some positive press in the US and recently completed a short UK tour. The Leaving Kind is a positive start to the next part of that journey.

Another packed show with two more fabulous guests. First up, Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reid, whose album Getting There is out today, followed by AUK favourite Jason McNiff, whose Ten Blue Songs came out a couple of weeks ago. Eli tells Keith how much he’s grown up… or not, and Jason talks of songs old and new and the joy of a live performance. There’s also another listener request in the shape of Giant Sand, new stuff from Mama’s Broke, and an anniversary track from His Bobness. What more could you want or need?

We have to be honest with you, even if that wasn’t a good song we might well have featured it anyway – and long time readers can probably guess as to why that might be.  I mean, anyone who can strum a few chords and fit reasonable words to a ditty called Eigen Vectors or The Hecatontagon Song you know we’re just waiting for you.

As it is though this new release from Winter Stanley – the recording moniker of East Bay singer-songwriter Peter Winter Stanley – does make it on its own merits.  This new project finds him returning to music in a more dedicated way, having had younger experiences in church and high school bands.  It’s all due to changes in his life, which have made his music take more of a central stage.  In interviews he has said : “I got married, had two kids and began building a career working in high-end custom cabinetry. Music slowly shifted out of the center of my life, at least publicly.   I never really stopped writing or playing entirely, though, I worked on music in quieter ways and occasionally supported friends’ projects.”

Since his divorce, Stanley has ended up living close to school friend, and high school band member, Adam Myatt. Myatt had created Hand Me Down Recording, a studio and music label, in a warehouse in East Oakland, which became Winter Stanley’s base for recording.  Long Division also features Jody Clark on pedal steel.

The combination of beautifully poetic spoken word and pure, melodic singing in Amy Speace’s Days of Letting Go is utterly absorbing. Speace has just released a poetry collection, The Cardinals, along with this gorgeous accompanying single. It is a fabulous double-release from such a fine lyricist. Both this song and Speace’s new poems will feature on her upcoming tour.

The song features lots of narrative detail that places us in the life of a character, while tackling the universal theme of time’s relentless passage: “Time don’t care, no not at all // The days of letting go.”

Days of Letting Go was produced by Neilson Hubbard and was inspired by Bluegrass Highway, one of the poems from her collection. It was written as part of Speace’s MFA thesis. She explains: “I went to graduate school in Louisville, Kentucky and somewhere on 65 North there was a large black billboard with white writing that said, ‘Opium Kills. Jesus Saves.’ I was working on a series of ‘persona poems’-poems where the narrator isn’t me, is a character, a specific voice – and I imagined it as a male narrator driving back home after the funeral of his father’s death. Of course, my own father had died in late 2019, and that was also a subject I was writing about in my work at the time. I wrote the poem with the repeating refrain, clearly in song form, but wanted to keep it a poem until one of my mentors asked me why it wasn’t a song. I sang the whole thing to my friend Vance Gilbert, and he said, ‘You know what would be cool? If you spoke the verse lyrics.’ And I told him it was originally a poem, and he laughed.”

Video, song, melody, lyrics, poetry: this is immersive and beautiful art.

Dense harmonies and insightful words make this a “why haven’t I heard them before” album.

Fruition say that “this album is the culmination of almost two decades of making music. We set out to show the world what we’ve learned along the way, both musically and personally, but perhaps more importantly, the album makes a point to be honest about the things we’ve had to UNLEARN. So, while experience may have helped guide us through the recording process, the truth of this album is found in kicking old habits, letting go of control, interrogating our motives and approaching each session with fearless, open hearts.”

Produced by Tucker Martine, one of those producers who almost has a sound of their own, and indeed the band credit him as “became our sixth member as the producer and dream-actualizer” of Something More. They use words like “genre-bending” and “melting pot” to describe their sound. The opening song, Compass, manifests as an acoustic soul-pop song, drawing an emotional vocal from Kellen Asebroek. Following that, we have the more country-based Oh Well, this time written and sung by Jay Cobb Anderson, whose pedal steel also dominates the song. Miriam Naja gives us Matters Of the Heart, which features her vocals and electric guitar and is more country-rock with a bite. As a new listener to Fruition’s music, this suggests that they are a vehicle for the 3 songwriters individually, possibly at the expense of a clear band identity.

Asebroek’s How Does it Feel is where the harmonies start to really come together, shades of Fleet Foxes’ first album. The electric piano and languid tempo suggest another Portland band, The Delines, and Martine allows the music and harmonies to drift together, producing a wall of sound that reflects the theme of feeling trapped in life and wanting to make changes but not knowing how to. Naja approaches a similar theme in Forward: “Lately I’ve been swimming in all the things that could have been. And it’s holding me back from moving forward.” Anderson’s electric slide guitar solo adds a spiky counterpoint to the words.

The Asebrook, Anderson, Naja order of the first six songs does make the album sound like a songwriting competition at times, as all three have very distinctive styles. When that sequence is broken with Anderson’s I’m Not Afraid, the band’s identity becomes clearer. A driving indie tune with duelling guitars and high-energy drums from Tyler Thompson, it is the point at which their assertion that “songwriting took place during collaborative sessions” as it’s clear Naja had a big hand in the writing. The vocal showcase of the album’s title song is where Shwan Apley’s Cello is shown off to best effect.

The brass additions to Somewhere Down The Line enhance the soulful strand to Fruition’s sound. Bass player Jeff Leonard pushes the song forward with a Motown lick, and Miriam Naja adds a little wry humour to the lyrics. After a few listens, this is the song that becomes most anticipated. It slides into the only co-write on the album, By Now, where all three singers join together across the song. The harmonies are what set Fruition apart and where their core band identity sits. The guitars of Naja and Anderson fill up the sound once again as the song closes in a squall of feedback. After that, All Over is something of a palette cleanser, a simple drum machine and acoustic guitar tune.

If this album has a problem, it is in the sequencing; lumping the more “indie” songs in the later third of the album gives the earlier part a less distinctive band sound than it might have had if one of the more punchy songs had been moved up to provide an “ooh what’s this” moment. It’s possible to imagine listeners looking for a bit more grit, listening with finger poised over the skip button. That would be a shame because this is a really good album, and certainly a point to go and investigate the 20 years of Fruition’s music that you may have missed.

Liverpool singer-songwriter John Jenkins and is one of our “most compelling voices in folk, Americana, and country,” as his press accurately describes him. Having seen him play live with his regular musical partner, Pippa Murdie, in a pub in Bath some time ago, I can understand where the inspiration for this story came from. John tells us that his ideal image to go with this would be of Willie Nelson queuing up to see a Willie Nelson tribute artist. You can find his latest song, Too Many Roads, at the bottom of the story.

Just One of Those Nights
by John Jenkins

One of these days, I’ll get around to telling my story, the whole sweep of my life experiences. I won’t be telling it because I’m famous. I’m not. Am I known? Not really. So why burden anyone with the story of my life? A relatively unknown music artist, and more to the point, who would read it?

Well, I’ll answer the last question first. You may read it, as you’re reading these words right now, this very minute. Which goes to show that something I’ve written can find its way into the hands of the most obscure people. Don’t take that last bit personally, by the way.

So why write it? Well, I’m a writer, a songwriter first, and writing is what I do. “Three chords and the truth,” they say over here in Nashville. I know about ten chords myself, so sometimes the truth and imagination can blur.

It’s a strange old life, being in the music business, especially as an Americana singer-songwriter. For a start, I’ve never been any good at explaining what Americana actually is. People ask, I stumble through a description, and they look at me as if I’ve just tried to explain the NFL rulebook to a houseplant. Truthfully, they wouldn’t care even if I could explain it. Being a performer is a life of highs and lows. The lows are low enough to make you consider calling it quits, and the highs, when they do arrive, are just bright enough to convince you it’s all worthwhile. I like to tell people it’s “an even field,” but if I’m honest, my field slopes gently toward the sadder end of the scale.

I tell this story at shows, and it always gets a laugh, though I wish it weren’t true. Once, I put ten CDs out on the merch table. When the show was over, there were eleven. I still don’t know whether I miscounted at the start or whether someone quietly returned one they’d bought earlier out of pity. Either way, it’s not the sort of thing that builds confidence.

Confidence is a strange beast. I’m brave enough to put myself forward for events and opening slots, but the non-replies, the polite promises that never materialise, they chip away at whatever confidence I’ve managed to gather. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard, “Oh yes, Matt, I’ve got you down for a future spot,” only to never hear another word. Even musical friends who get bookings easily, the sort you’d imagine might think of me for an opening gig, never seem to send anything my way.

Am I lousy? Am I good? I like to think I’m pretty decent, but not everyone is honest. Occasionally someone will say, “That was wonderful,” or “Your songs are super,” and I cling to those moments. Then there was the time a friend held one of those “special” shows, an album launch, or perhaps a celebration of being sober for a month. He invited practically every mutual musician friend to play. Except me. Then he told the audience, “I was going to get Matt up, but he can’t sing.” Everyone laughed. I laughed too, though I felt like crying. He’s still wondering who cut his guitar strings later that night. You’d think he’d have guessed.

Every now and then someone tells me my voice is wonderful, and it confuses me all over again.
I went to see Shelby Breeden at a new venue just down the road from Henson County train station.
It’s called The Falls, and it’s a great place. I had the usual pointless conversation with the owner.

Me: I’m a singer. Here’s my card. Any chance of a gig? Him: How many followers have you? Me: In
Henson County? I don’t know. Him: Don’t know? You need a following before I can give you a gig.
Me: How do I get a following if no one will let me play here so people can decide they want to
follow me? Him: That’s your problem.

And off he went to restock the beer cooler. I stood there with no gig and no beer.

My buddy Dan, who loves young female country singers with a twang in their voice, just smiled at
my determination. “I don’t know why you bother,” he said. “They only want young, pretty girls in
cowboy hats and boots. You don’t fit the job description, the unwritten one.”
“But what if I were Willie Nelson?” I asked, still eyeing the beer cooler hopefully.
“Willie Nelson wouldn’t get a gig if he were starting out now,” Dan said. “Maybe in a nursing home,
but he’d have to play songs they knew.”

I pondered this. Would they remember the songs? He’d only need to play one all day. Dan was right.
If Willie Nelson were ‘Bob Stewart’ and wanted a gig at The Falls, he’d struggle. Good job he started
seventy years ago.

I know I come across as getting the short end of the stick, but it’s difficult not to. I’m a glass-half-empty
empty kind of guy, and this business seems designed for the glass-half-full crowd.
We performers can play to an empty room and wonder why no one will pay five dollars to hear
original songs. Meanwhile, some half-assed tribute band sells out every night. You imagine a
Fleetwood Mac tribute would pack the place, but if the real Fleetwood Mac were starting out today,
no one would pay five dollars to see them.

“I doubt it,” Dan said. “They’d probably be doing boring blues instrumentals.”
He can be sarcastic, that Dan. If he were a guitarist, I’d cut his strings too.
“There’s no spirit of adventure,” I rambled. “People don’t want to hear new music.”
“They need to know the songs,” Dan replied.
He says I’m a whiner, and maybe he’s right.
“Is it wrong to play only original songs and no covers?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “They need something familiar.”
“If they came back a second or third time, they’d know my songs,” I muttered, though with less
conviction than before. The beer cooler was finally restocked, so we shut up.

Not all my friends follow Americana or country or folk. One friend, Cal, who moonlights as a rodeo
rider, loves Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell.
“But Joni is Americana, Cal,” I said. “No she isn’t,” he replied.

He loves good lyrics and appreciates that Nashville writers care about words; though not,
apparently, about chords.
“C, F and G have a lot of mileage,” I told him. I don’t know why we discuss music; he hates
Springsteen and the Beatles, which should disqualify him from any musical conversation.
Ben, who loves Joni, tells me not to worry if Cal doesn’t like my new songs. “I’d be more worried if
he did,” he says.

So the three of us were out one night at a bar downtown. There was one of those writers’ round
events, four people doing a song each. Ben was already halfway to oblivion; I can’t remember the
last time I saw him sober. Cal wore his signature cowboy hat and shirt. I, meanwhile, am a man who
tolerates his reflection but hates his selfies. I have no signature look. I’ve tried hats, caps, suits, shirts
tucked in, shirts untucked hanging down near my knees; I still feel like an impostor.

Since COVID, I wear glasses instead of contacts. Once, at a gig, I wore sunglasses. I wanted to look
cool. I played a new song, and because I needed the lyrics and chords in front of me, halfway
through verse one, I realised I couldn’t read a thing. I had to stop mid-song and run backstage to
change my glasses. Totally unprofessional. I apologised afterwards, though the audience had
switched off after my first song, so fortunately no one noticed.

I could relate the rest of our night’s misadventures, as they seem fairly typical of my music nights,
but I’ll save that for another time… if you want. One thing I will say is that I went home that night
with a spring in my step, and it wasn’t just the beers giving me light feet.

Despite all my moaning about the industry, I got a message from Brent Brenton; you may
remember he was the songwriter who won Grammys four years in a row for his songs. Somehow,
on social media, I’d been listed as one of his top fans, and as this appeared on both my profile and
his, he messaged me to thank me for being so loyal. Completely out of the blue, too, as I was
flicking through my phone whilst, er… watching the support act.

Yes, I’m terribly guilty of being one of those people who endlessly scrolls through his phone when
he should be focused on the artists performing in front of him. I might actually learn something if I
did.

Out of the blue, as I’ve said, he got in touch to say, “Thank you for your loyalty.” I thanked
him for thanking me, he thanked me for thanking him for thanking me, and so on. Somewhere in
the exchange I must have mentioned that I’m a songwriter and performer, and he came back later
saying he’d check me out.

As the beer flowed, I got more adventurous, and in a fit of madness I asked if he fancied writing a
song together. By closing time, he’d replied: “Yeah. I’ll get my manager to contact you over the next
few days to set something up.”

Dan was impressed, the barman was impressed, the manager was impressed, the performers were
impressed. Everyone I spoke to was impressed. Yes, I had boastingly passed around my saved
screenshot to everyone with a pulse in the venue. Walking home, I had a very high opinion of
myself. The glass was now half full.

It didn’t take long to bounce back to earth, though. Brent Brenton put out a message saying his
social media had been hijacked, and fraudsters had been pretending to be him.
Life goes on. I’m still here, trying, waiting for the next misadventure, looking to get my glass half
full again.

Stunning traditional songwriting on instant folk classic.

This is the second full-length release by singer-songwriter David Coller this year. His first, When Summer Comes, was given a glowing write-up in these pages, and now comes Blue Water, which is shot through with maritime influences: hardly surprising, as Coller has spent a very significant time on his own schooner, which he has recently given up. So this is something of a requiem as well as a celebration of all things sea-connected. 

The album is wholeheartedly in the folk genre; the production is naturalistic and light of touch, mostly based around Coller’s own guitar and vocals, with some really stunning harmonies from his life partner Diane Chodkowski (herself a long-time doyen of the folk scene). There are some lovely additional instrumental touches when they are needed, though, with hammered dulcimer, fiddle, accordion, pedal steel, drums, and producer Mark Dann joining on bass, too. 

This is a record full of beautifully crafted songs, some of which sound like standards already. All bear repeat listens. Indeed, this is a collection that begs for the old-fashioned concept of listening to in full and in order, as the artist intended.

The Rigger’s Apprentice could have emerged from the Ewan MacColl songbook, with a shanty-feel padded out with full storytelling. Roseanna treads similar ground, but this time with a lullaby feel. It is not the only song that sounds like an actual traditional song, a tribute to Coller’s knowledge of the form, and ability to bend it to his own songwriting shape. 

Let Your Love Roll Easy, the heartbreaking lost-love narrative of Love On A Lee Shore and the absolutely captivating Just Another Day have more of a gentle, country songwriting feel to them; think Kate Wolfe, Bill Staines or Nanci Griffith, and you won’t be far away. Diggin’ For Clams and We’re Sinking demonstrate a nice sense of humour, shading the light and dark into the album’s feel. 

So, if the likes of Wolfe, Staines, Tom Paxton, or Pete Seeger are mentioned, it is only to give the idea of what you might hear, but Coller is no one’s copyist. He has composed an album full of wonderful, timeless songs that could have appeared any time over many previous decades, even previous centuries in some cases. The understated production means you could easily imagine sitting in the corner of a folk club and hearing them delivered with pure intention, just the songs and the connections, with no musical smoke and mirrors. This is a lovely record for those who like their music to be equal parts soothing, thoughtful, truthful, and unadulterated. 

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’s Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour, called by Time Magazine –  “one of the most unflinching acts of musical resistance in the nation’s history”, has released an official video featuring in sequence from the first seven songs of the tour’s Philadelphia finale. The 30th of May show was filmed in its entirety and is planned for release in three additional, in-sequence segments through the end of the year. The release is streaming free on most platforms and below, and is in memory of Dave Marsh.

The film “Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour (Philadelphia Freedom Cut)”  (snappy title there Bruce!) is available now, and features performances of Born in the U.S.A., Death to My Hometown, No Surrender and Darkness on the Edge of Town alongside covers of the Motown classic War”(written by Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield) and The Clash’s Clampdown.

“I’m thrilled to be releasing our final show from the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour — recorded in the birthplace of American freedom, Philadelphia, USA,” said Springsteen. “On the tour, we rocked the house from one end of the country to the other and, while we were at it, we spoke up everywhere in defense of our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our sacred democracy — which are under attack by a lawless President and his regime. It’s all captured on our Philadelphia Freedom Cut — hope you enjoy it.”

Musicians on stage included the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan (piano, synthesiser), Nils Lofgren (guitar, vocals), Garry Tallent (bass guitar), Stevie Van Zandt (guitar, vocals) and Max Weinberg (drums) with Soozie Tyrell (violin, guitar, vocals), Jake Clemons (saxophone), and Charlie Giordano (organ, keyboards, accordion). They were joined by The E Street Horns and Percussion (Anthony Almonte, Barry Danielian, Eddie Manion, Ozzie Melendez, Curt Ramm) and The E Street Choir (Ada Dyer, Curtis King, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore). Tom Morello performed with Springsteen and the E Street Band for each of the tour’s 20 shows as a special guest.

The film is directed by Chris Hilson and Thom Zimny, edited by Zimny and Sam Shapiro, and produced by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Zimny and Adrienne Gerard. Sound was mixed by Jon Altschiller and recorded by John Cooper, with lighting design by Jeff Ravitz and Todd Ricci.

“Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour” tracklisting:

1. War
2. Born in the U.S.A.
3. Death to My Hometown
4. Clampdown
5. No Surrender
6. Darkness on the Edge of Town
7. Streets of Minneapolis

MF Tomlinson’s new EP would place him at odds with Ben Rumson, who famously claimed to be born beneath a planet, and asked the rhetorical question “Do you know where hell is ?”  By comparison Tomlinson would like it to be known that in his opinion Heaven Is Other People.  It’s an attitude he’s willing to back up saying “Sometimes the power of a song is to reach for meaning words cannot access. At other times it’s a gift that lets you name something profound – so simply – that it feels effortless. It’s too easy to forget in the cynicism of our day-to-day that it’s people who make our lives what they are, and people that we will see in our dreams.”  Speaking specifically to today’s song, he add that “My experience of becoming a parent has all been quite unexpected.  Having something so powerfully and wholly wonderful and good in my world that just blows all the fears that used to monopolise my time away. I’ve got something better to live for now – now, I am free.”

Heaven Is Other People is Tomlinson’s first body of work since completing a remarkable self-produced album trilogy with 2025’s Die To Wake Up From A Dream.  Written following the birth of his first child and recorded during impromptu sessions at his studio in Poplar, London, Tomlinson describes Heaven Is Other People as “a collection of lo-fi gestural pieces on human connection“.   On the EP he is joined by regular collaborators (the “MFs”): Ed Grimshaw (drums), Ben Manning (bass), Gail Tasker (flute) and Kayvon Nabijou (keys and saxophone).