Track By Track: Sophie Jamieson ‘Choosing’

The artist shares a track by track ahead of debut album ‘Choosing’ which is out tomorrow via Bella Union.

New Bella Union signing Sophie Jamieson shares with us a track by track of her upcoming debut album ‘Choosing’. Water appears to be a consistent theme throughout the eleven songs that make up the album, though it was never at the forefront of her mind as she was writing them. Examples include raging storms with lashing rain, the eerie stillness of great expanses of water, overflowing bathtubs, and the creeping ripples of a broken surface. The album, which chronicles Sophie's own arduous struggle against the tide, feels ever-present even in more vague words. It frequently considers the two options of letting ourselves sink or pushing ourselves to the surface. Sit back and get ready to float down the stream.

Addition

This song is like a desperate search for an answer, a key, a little bit of hope. I was bursting with something I didn’t understand and it fizzled over in public and humiliating ways. I guess this song is examining the wreckage, trying to find something worth keeping and building upon.

Crystal

Written from the delusion of thinking that somebody just needed loosening up in order to show you love. This song is mainly about hearing “no”, but not really being able to hear or accept it through the fog, and not knowing where else to go for warmth. I liked this person best when their answers weren’t clear, and thus I could still find hope in them.

Downpour

Similarly, this song is about being at the behest of somebody else’s feelings and words. They had such power over me, my actions, and how I felt about myself. The more I turned up at their doorstep, the emptier I felt when I left. Yet I thought they were the only place to find love and nourishment.

Sink

This song began as a poem addressed to alcohol, and turned into a playful little ditty set on a beautiful, still desert island. It’s a painting of how I felt about booze and how I thought it felt about me. I wrote it when I realised it did not love me back, that it was not a friend that I could talk to, that it would sink me if I didn’t make a choice, quickly.

Fill

Simply about not knowing how to be whole all by yourself. There was a time where I would accept whatever kind of love came my way, because it was better than nothing. But naturally, it only made me feel emptier. I think I was very ashamed of everything I felt and how much love I needed, so I squashed it down, numbed, and didn’t think to give anything to myself.

Empties

The final song I wrote for this album, I didn’t plan to include it for this project. I wrote it at a time when I thought my self-destructive times were over, I was in what I thought was a healthy happy relationship. In retrospect I find this song very revealing. I had still not learned how to hold my own, alone. I still used the imagery of being full vs empty.

Runner

This is a moment of realisation, recognition and understanding. I wanted it to start the second half of the album and the brighter, more informed, more hopeful half. I also wanted to provide the release that I’d been looking for in all the wrong places, in musical form, and it was so much more real and pure.

Violence

This song finally looks internally for answers when most others looked outside. It looks for where self-punishment and self-hatred come from, and looks at the violent effect of words and the subsequent violence a person can inflict on themself as they internalise them.

Boundary

This is probably my favourite song on the album, as there is so much hope and joy in it at its roots. Its full of self-compassion, self-recognition and the potential for wholeness and fullness. It looks the destruction straight in the face and thus lets the sting and the shame fizzle out, leaving just the human vulnerability.

Who Will I be

Another song that wasn’t intended for this album. We included because of the understanding, hope and joy it seemed to fizzle with. I was in the early days of a relationship where I was trying to learn that I didn’t need to keep hurting myself, that I could let myself be loved, let myself feel, let myself trust and let myself be vulnerable.

Long Play

The story that this song tells is a tapestry of 4 or 5 different nights with men that had something in common - my lack of sense of self. I was young, naive, couldn’t say no when I wanted to, couldn’t ask for what I needed. These nights all fed into a loneliness, shame and lack of self worth that fed into how I treated myself, I think. The song also touches upon the future, that fighting for yourself and choosing yourself is a lifelong process of learning, that’s really only just beginning.