Jim James, the fog-horned vocalist for American rock band My Morning Jacket has always been a restless soul.
After having palled about with M. Ward and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes in supergroup Monsters Of Folk, lent a musical hand to The Flaming Lips, The Roots and Laura Veirs; as well as releasing his solo debut in an obscure EP of George Harrison covers under the moniker of Yim Yames – the My Morning Jacket ringleader is now ready to release his first full-length solo record.
As Pitchfork reports, Jim James will unleash Regions Of Light And Sound Of God early next year, and there’s already a first taste of his new solo LP in the form of lead single ‘Know Til Now’ (which you can stream or download in the widget below).
The 34-year-old Kentucky native has delivered a truly solo effort, playing every instrument on the record and even engineering it on his lonesome.
James adds that the album has a particularly specific source of inspiration, in the 1929 graphic novel God’s Man by Lynd Ward. Which according to the record’s press release “chronicles an artist’s struggles with temptation and corruption, along with finding true love.”
“Some of the things happening in the book were happening to me in real life, in a very strange and painful, then a very beautiful way,” notes James of the graphic novel. There’s also a lingering sci-fi element to the record, with its creator noting:
I wanted the album to sound like it came from a different place in time. Perhaps sounding as if it were the past of the future, if that makes any sense—like a hazy dream that a fully-realized android or humanoid capable of thought might have when it reminisces about the good old days of just being a simple robot.
The news of James’ latest solo endeavour shouldn’t concern My Morning Jacket fans too much about the band entering any downtime, in fact the five-piece have some shows booked before the end of the year before spending their New Year’s Eve in Boston for their final gig of 2012.
Jim James’ Regions Of Light And Sound Of God is already available to pre-order in a number of formats from Jim James’ website, and on top of the usual CD, vinyl, and digital versions there’s also a limited collector’s edition available for early birds with some extra trimmings (t-shirt, tote bag, keychain).
You can stream or download lead single ‘Know Til Now’ from the widget below, then scope the album’s artwork and tracklisting.
01 State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U)
02 Know Til Now
03 Dear One
04 A New Life
05 Exploding
06 Of the Mother Again
07 Actress
08 All Is Forgiven
09 God’s Love to Deliver
