JAMES VINCENT MCMORROW ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM GRAPEFRUIT SEASON WITH NEW SONG WAITING
JAMES VINCENT MCMORROW
ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM GRAPEFRUIT SEASON
WITH NEW SONG WAITING
HEADLINE UK + EUROPEAN TOUR
ALSO CONFIRMED
NEW SINGLE COMING SOON ON COLUMBIA RECORDS
“McMorrow has a soul voice to cherish” – Guardian
“The ever-shifting Irish singer-songwriter…it works” – Sunday Times, Hottest Tracks
“Pushing his music onto a different realm, whilst maintaining that recognizable
emotional pull” – CLASH
“Lyrically raw and immensely quotable” – The Forty Five
Toronto, ON – April 9, 2021 – James Vincent McMorrow has today announced details of brand-new album, Grapefruit Season, which will see a release via Columbia Records on July 16, pre-order the album here. The record is launched today alongside beautiful album track Waiting – listen here / watch here – following acclaimed recent single, Gone (which was B-Listed at Radio 1) and standalone collaboration, Be Somebody with dance trailblazers, Rudimental. James’ UK and European tour for early 2022 has also now been confirmed, including a London date at Kentish Town Forum on February 21st and two homecoming shows at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on April 19/20.
In an already-unpredictable career, Grapefruit Season sees James Vincent McMorrow push himself (and his sound) in all new ways. Produced by James alongside fellow genre-disruptors, Paul Epworth, Kenny Beats, Lil Silva and Patrick Wimberly (Chairlift), McMorrow’s fifth album was recorded between London, Los Angeles and Dublin largely before the pandemic struck. It embraces the fact that life is chaos, and the idea of growing up but feeling none the wiser. Each song is held together by McMorrow’s instantly-identifiable voice, an untethered musical imagination, and (from dancehall to soul, country to R&B) purposefully little else in its pursuit of fear-free pop music. Even the title, Grapefruit Season, seems to signpost doing simply what you want, rather than what you are supposed to do (it was inspired by James watching his mum eat grapefruit as a kid, and the idea that what’s good for you may not actually be pleasurable). Throughout the emotional highs and lows of ‘Grapefruit Season’, you are reminded of the risks James Vincent McMorrow has taken since the singer-songwriter roots of debut album, Early In The Morning, (which turned ten in 2020); but also that those same instincts – to follow inspiration wherever it leads, and to be as brutally honest possible – remain a refreshing constant.
“Every time a new song or album comes out, I get a mail asking me to put together some thoughts on the songs and how they came together, where they came from, what they mean. The truth is I just live my life, the songs come when they come, and they come from wherever they come from. Then once they’re done I start worrying about if they’re good enough, if I mean enough to make them good enough.
This last year has been a massive lesson in patience for all of us. But I don’t feel any more patient than I did before, in fact the opposite, I feel impatient. I had this album finished last year and then the world stopped and I had to stop. I remember sitting in my car crying after I heard that we’d be parking the work until 2021, and then I wrote ‘Waiting.’ It’s a song about feeling sorry for myself, and then going home and talking to the one person in my life who understands just how awkward a fit all of this is for me, and who loves me for the actual human I am and not what I curate in order to feel like the person I need to be.
I don’t know if any of this makes any sense – but Grapefruit Season is about embracing the idea nothing makes sense. None of it is supposed to be linear. Music isn’t some holy grail to a greater meaning, it’s supposed to remove you from where you are for a moment and take you somewhere else. And I’m not saying that isn’t a transcendent thing, because when it’s done well it truly is. And I believe/hope I have done it well with this album. I’m just saying that at the end of the day, music is a simple idea unadorned idea that doesn’t need bells and whistles to make it work…. unless you’re making an album where the only instruments are bells and whistles, then you definitely need them to make it work.”
Tickets for James Vincent McMorrow’s 2022 headline tour are available as follows, with news of JVM’s new single from Grapefruit Season to follow Gone expected soon.
2022 TOUR DATES:
February 4 || Leuven || Het Depot
February 5 || Paris || Le Trianon
February 6 || Luxembourg || Den Atelier
February 8 || Frankfurt || Batschkapp
February 9 || Amsterdam || Paradiso
February 10 || Hamburg || Grunspan
February 12 || Stockholm || Nalen
February 13 || Copenhagen || Vega
February 15 || Berlin || Metropol
February 16 || Cologne || Gloria Theatre
February 18 || Manchester || O2 Ritz
February 20 || Birmingham || O2 Institute
February 21 || London || O2 Kentish Town Forum
February 22 || Bristol || O2 Academy
February 23 || Glasgow || Barrowland Ballroom
April 19 || Dublin || Olympia Theatre
April 20 || Dublin || Olympia Theatre
April 21 || Belfast || Limelight
April 22 || Limerick || Milk Market
