- 2024-06-26
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MUSIC
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Jodie Nicholson Releases New Album “Safe Hands”
Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based singer-songwriter and producer Jodie Nicholson released her sophomore album “Safe Hands” on May 10, 2024.
The album is her first project in five years since the 2019 debut album “Golden Hour” and comprises a 12-track, featuring a guest appearance from Sam Griffiths.
The album is self-produced by Jodie Nicholson at Blank Studios in Newcastle, exploring themes of escapism, nostalgia and self-reflection.
On the album, she navigates about self trust, friends, family, relationships with ourselves and, more personally, her changing relationship with music.
Jodie Nicholson said of the album in a statement, “The concept of being in 'safe hands' really spurred me on throughout the making of this record as a reminder that I can actually do these things: I can be the sole producer, I can record in a recording studio and I can collaborate with session musicians. It felt so right as the backbone for this body of work and chapter in my career as an artist and a producer, so naturally became the name of the album. It weirdly became a holistic outlook on the whole project.”- Jodie Nicholson shared, “I am so proud of this record. I'm SO proud to be the sole producer credited across every! single! track! I set out to make this album with three non-negotiable aims: to record my music in a studio for the first time, to work with session musicians and collaborators in-person(!) and to be the sole producer across the entire record. To many people and artists, those things might not sound all that ground-breaking, but, to me, it felt like taking a BIG trust fall on my creativity, ideas, ambitions, skills I've learned and meant completely changing and challenging the way I've previously recorded my own music. This album was my opportunity to create a body of work that could shape my future and was about proving to myself (more than anyone else) what I can be capable of as an artist, songwriter and producer.”
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“Safe Hands is, ultimately, an album centered around self-trust, both creatively and introspectively, and is a personal reminder to believe in myself more,” Jodie Nicholson told Atwood Magazine about the album. “After a three-year gap of not releasing music, I'd like to think that this album reflects the time, research, experimentation, and thought spent finding who I want to be as an artist, how I want to develop my career, what I want to say and how I hope people will feel through my music.”
She continued, “The songs themselves reflect nuances in the different relationships we have in our lives: Friends, family, with ourselves and, more personally, my relationship with music and how that's changed over the years. Sonically, it takes on all the different facets of my sound and touches on the prog side of pop in the classic it-starts-off-slow-but-gets-bigger-at-the-end kind of fashion that I gravitate towards with my music. If you love music that makes you feel sadness, hope, nostalgia, and/or euphoria, you might like Safe Hands.”
Jodie Nicholson explained some tracks for the album.
“You Wanted This”
“I wrote it at a time when I'd fallen out of love with being an artist and was casting my mind back to how much I loved music as a kid. This song, for me, was a way of re-channeling those childhood memories and using a bunch of synths to re-gain that child-like excitement for making music. It's also a nod to one of my fave artists, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, whose music has soundtracked my life for over a decade.”
“Bad Dream” via Atwood Magazine
“'Bad Dream' for its forwardness and being a big melting pot of musical influences.”
“Another Frequency” featuring Sam Griffiths
“'Another Frequency' is about not knowing whether to leave a relationship or not, feeling like you and the other person are on totally different pages and finding solace in solo-drives in your car to unravel the situation,” Nicholson explains. “Sam Griffiths [of The Howl & The Hum] and I wrote it in summer 2021 at The Howl & The Hum's studio in York.
Production-wise this one stumped me for a long time and it wasn't until a week before heading into the studio that it finally started to come together. Sam joined me one afternoon at Blank Studios. We spent time shaping the track with bass and as soon as he sang on it, the whole track came to life. It was like the last piece of the puzzle had finally been added. My favourite part of the recording process, as well as Sam adding his parts, was experimenting with a radio I found on a shelf in Blank and using sections of me flicking through the channels to book-end the track. It feels like a sonic reflection of overthinking.”
“Embers” via Atwood Magazine
“Lastly, the end section of 'Embers' is a personal highlight – Fran's drums are incredible!”
“What If I”
“With 'What If I', I remember thinking that I didn't want to lose sight of why I love making music, what made me want to start releasing music in the first place. I think I was feeling quite under pressure to write and make good music, ironically for this record, and all the far-ahead planning that comes with being an artist was really getting to me. Writing 'What If I' felt like a remedy to all that.”
“Starlight”
“I'll always have a particular soft-spot for 'Starlight' as this magical little pocket in the album and the catalyst to making a second record. To me, it's perfect.”
“Love, I'm On Fire”
“During recording lead vocal takes, for a split second I couldn't hold it together. I cried in the middle of Blank Studios, took a ten minute break, had a very nice chat with my engineer Luke (who was very lovely about it) and went back in to record a few more takes. I think you can tell my voice is a little more shaky/emotional than usual. The piano part was born from me messing around on my walk back into the control room after recording some vocal takes. I asked Luke if we could mic up the older piano in Blank, which has a gorgeous warmth to it, and dropped it in. It was one of my favourite moments/parts I recorded. I love how un-planned it was, it adds so much to that section.”
Photo by Ellen Dixon - source : Apple Music
