After three years of hush, James Vincent McMorrow marks his return with a soul warming new track ‘Headlights’. It’s a song that builds carefully and purposefully to reach that point of uplift that he so often achieves in his music. As James says himself ‘I wanted Headlights to start in a plaintive humble place and finish in this huge place’. So you get the picture, this is a tune with trajectory marked out by McMorrow’s sultry falsetto, beats that push the mood forwards and luscious keyboard layers.
Still in touch with the inventively textured R&B of his last two albums (2016’s ‘We Move’ and 2017’s ‘True Love’), ‘Headlights’ picks up the pumping momentum of the best electronica captured perfectly in song form. It tells a story and suggests McMorrow will be drawing from the spirit of his singer-songwriter roots in this next instalment from a very singular artist. Certainly, the playful personal video that accompanies the track, shot at home during lockdown, points to a renewed openness and spontaneity. James sees it as ‘unadorned and honest, not curated or edited to present any vision’. That sums up the human touch in all his work and if ‘Headlights’ is anything to go by, the forthcoming album will be reaching out once again.
Headlights is out now via Columbia Records§
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