Today, we are premiering Scared to Love, the latest single from Jason McNiff which drops this Friday (July 3rd) and paves the way for his tenth album, Ten Blue Songs, which will be released on 28th August via Tombola Records.
McNiff calls Scared to Love the emotional centre of his new album. Stripped-back classical guitar and layered vocals carry a song about masculinity, vulnerability and emotional risk — the difficulty of staying open-hearted in a culture that often rewards distance and self-protection. There’s an intimacy to it that recalls the hushed feel of José González‘s Heartbeats.
It’s also a song he almost didn’t release. “This is the song I nearly threw away,” McNiff tells us. “I realised after a bit of reflection that there was real embarrassment I felt singing that line, and that that was probably a good thing. It now feels applicable to many different situations and I love singing it.”
Despite the melancholy title, McNiff frames Ten Blue Songs as a celebration of the working life he has built since moving to Hastings, where he now plays several nights a week. “I always loved how Woody Allen would play his clarinet every Monday night for 50 years, missing the Oscars, but never missing a show,” he says. “Now, I have three well-attended nights a week in Hastings, and I never miss a show! This album is evidence of our working life and couldn’t exist without the gigs.” He’s wary of romanticising it, though: “You never really arrive with live music, and even when you feel you have, that’s when the bubble bursts. One good show means nothing if the next one falls flat. I still doubt myself every night, but maybe that’s part of what keeps us reaching.”
The album was produced and recorded by Trevor Moss — of Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou, and a long-standing presence in McNiff’s Hastings circle — at his Bexpop studio in Bexhill-on-Sea. Moss learned the craft from Ethan Johns, and the sessions chased feel over technical polish, beginning live in the room with clarinet, double bass, piano and violin woven around McNiff’s vocal and guitar. It was the first time McNiff had let his friend of two decades produce him: “It was brilliant to not have to pussyfoot around or be necessarily too polite in the studio. He was quite comfortable saying that’s crap, do it again. That is actually invaluable.”
Ten Blue Songs follows last year’s Everything’s A Song, his ninth and another KLOF favourite, also on Tombola.
Scared to Love (July 3rd, 2026). Ten Blue Songs (28th August, 2026) Tombola Records.