Jim Moray has plenty to shout about this month with a brand new website just launched and a new video for the 2013 remix of Early One Morning, taken from the 10th anniversary edition of Sweet England. The new version of which contains the original album remastered, plus a remix of Early One Morning, and five never-heard-before live tracks from the original Sweet England tour. It’s on a limited edition CD with a 3D lenticular lens on the cover, and download from http://jimmoray.bandcamp.com
Sweet England
In 2003, aged 21, Jim Moray released his revolutionary debut album Sweet England. Made in his student bedroom and produced, engineered and played almost entirely by Moray himself, the album sounded unlike anything else in folk music at the time. It was immediately seized on by the public and the media, becoming a best-seller and gaining praise and controversy in equal measure for its fusing of traditional songs, contemporary production and trip-hop programming. The album dominated the following year’s BBC Folk Awards, gained the unique distinction of airplay and interviews on all six BBC National Radio Stations, and soundtracked TV shows and adverts, shaping the sound of folk music in the following decade. It was the highest English folk album in Songlines’ ‘Top 50 albums of the decade’ in 2010 and Jon Boden named it one of his albums of the 00s in Properganda magazine.
Writing about the album in its ‘Cult Classics’ series in 2007, The Independent said:
More adventurous than his folk contemporaries, Moray reinvented the genre, fusing traditional song with modern production values and arrangements that draw on ambient soundscapes as much as they do conventional playing. Moray created a cult classic which, while consciously sidestepping the mainstream, has attracted a fervent following.
New Video: Early One Morning (2013 mix)
Tour dates & 10th Anniversary Party
Jim is also very excited to be celebrating his 10th Anniversary Party at the Union Chapel in London on November the 9th. He’ll be playing the entire of Sweet England with the Dorset Ensemble strings, and then doing a second set of “greatest hits” with loads of guests. He’s also playing in Cambridge, Maidstone, Bury (a northern ‘Sweet England’ show with the strings for English Folk Expo) and Newbury before ending the year at the Great British Folk Festival. Tickets are available from the website here: