How Long/One is the new single from Suffolk born, Somerset-based British singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Adams, the latest release under his moniker Julius Way. How Long/One is due for release on 31st July 2020, and the tracks are edits of the full versions which are taken from the forthcoming new Julius Way album The Husk due in Autumn 2020. The Husk follows a series of self-released records, the most recent being Creature of the Dark in 2018. One is released with a beautiful video filmed on location in Somerset by Mathew, and post-edited in collaboration with filmmaker Ash Tidball.
Like the song, the video has a pastoral charm all of its own. Matthew:-
“The video for One was made during lockdown in late Spring/early Summer 2020. Me and my girlfriend Esmeralda (who also sings vocals on the track) were due to be travelling in Japan but the trip was cancelled. We had moved out of our flat in preparation for travel and became stranded without a home! Luckily we ended up looking after 2 lively dogs just outside Frome, Somerset for 4 months. The video is a kind of homage to our daily walk with the dogs, we started taking a camera out with us and filming ourselves singing while on the route as everything was coming into bloom. The lyrics of the song are about coming home, which felt very apt for the walk with the dogs. We both felt a real sense of coming home in living in our own little pocket of nature, tucked away from the rest of the world for 4 months.”
Lyrically How Long and One offer contrasting perspectives on love and intimacy. As Matthew explains ““How Long explores the push and pull of a relationship; the longing to let someone in and simultaneously the need to run away from what intimacy might expose, whereas One explores a sense of being taken over by, and surrendering to, a feeling of belonging, despite whatever one might have previously done to resist it”. With the lush harmonies, tuned percussion and music box production, musically the tracks call to mind a variety of artists, from the American stars of sophisticated songs of love such as The Magnetic Fields, Sufjan Stevens and Eels alongside British acts such as Belle & Sebastian and Damian Rice, all this with a touch of 60s sentimentalism that echoes the likes of Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell, the music of Julius Way certainly hits both head and heart with equal measure.
Something of a musical nomad having travelled in Asia and lived all around the UK as well as in Paris, Matthew has been part of the music scenes in Manchester and Brighton before ending up in Bristol then finally in Frome, Somerset, where he is part of the ever-thriving West Country folk scene, having more recently performed alongside luminaries such as Carrie Tree and Faeland and appeared at festivals such as Buddhafield and Into The Wild. How Long/One were both written, produced and performed by Matthew Adams with guests Ailsa Mair Hughes on cello, Mike Stanton on Piano and Esmeralda Vere on backing vocals.
Find out more here: https://juliusway.co.uk
Photo Credit: Hannah Jones – Grace and Wild photography