In just one short year since closing the loop on the staggering universe of Djesse – the four-album, seven-year series that spawned hundreds of collaborations, hundreds of songs and hundreds of thousands of voices in song from around the world – Jacob Collier is embarking on his next creative adventure. On October 10th, the seven-time GRAMMY winner will release The Light For Days (Hajanga/Interscope/Decca), a brand new record centered around a single instrument: the guitar. Featuring six original songs and five handpicked covers of longtime idols and inspirations such as James Taylor, John Martyn, The Beatles and The Beach Boys, this collection of music captures Collier at his most present and immediate. Gone are the pressures to outdo himself and continue exceeding the infinite possibilities, limitless capabilities and boundless expectations set by each growing installment of Djesse – The Light For Days is Collier freeing himself to be himself in his rawest, purest form.
Jacob Collier never anticipated when or how his next album would come, until it did. During a brief trip home to London, sitting in the same music room where his career began, surrounded by walls, shelves, desks and drawers full of instruments, he chose to explore his 5-string and 10-string signature Taylor acoustic guitars more fully than he ever had before. Through alternate tunings (“DAEAD”) and techniques, he trades scale for intimacy. Recorded and produced in only four days, The Light For Days reflects a core pillar of Collier’s artistry, offering a sonic counterpart to the moments in his live shows when everything falls away and it is just him and the music he loves. Following his recently-released rendition of the last Brian Wilson’s “Keep An Eye On Summer,” Jacob Collier has shared the latest preview of the album, an original song called “I Know (A Little),” available now.
“Since completing the Djesse album series, my imagination has been brimming with all sorts of ideas of things I’d like to do and create. One of the things I’ve wanted to really focus on, and zone into, is the limitation of a single instrument. The acoustic-guitar sound world has been a foundational aspect of my music universe for as long as I can remember, and so I set myself the challenge of making a full-length album, using almost entirely the five-stringed guitar, in just four days. As a result I had to work so fast that I couldn’t second-guess anything – I just had to roll with and trust the process. The results are warm, scrappy, imperfect, but very close to my heart.” – Jacob Collier
For those who have seen Jacob Collier’s magnetic and intimate performances live, or come into the Jacob community through the lens of songs such as “Hideaway”, “The Sun Is In Your Eyes” and “Little Blue,” The Light For Days feels like coming home. For everyone else, it is an album that shows him in a whole new light, while serving as a powerful reminder of the voice and versatility that have earned him seven GRAMMY wins and 15 nominations across genres. It is the first album to feature his lone human face on the cover, as he continues to ask the world to embrace “the wiggle”: softness is strength, and when we make music, we move and bend together.
Last month, Jacob Collier previewed The Light For Days during a surprise playback at his inaugural Hideaway Retreat, where he and 300 musicians and music enthusiasts transformed Tarrytown, NY into the center of his radically joyful world. The event marked a culmination of a year that has seen him earn his fifteenth GRAMMY nomination, and his second for Album of The Year; honor his late mentor and musical hero, Quincy Jones, on the GRAMMY telecast; headline the O2 Arena in his London hometown; collaborate with Bon Iver, as well as 9,000 primary school children as part of the UK’s ‘Young Voices’ choir initiative; conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in a completely improvised performance; perform atop an Arctic iceberg with AURORA and Greenpeace; and lead hundreds of thousands of concert attendees in his immersive audience choirs.
Whether it’s working with such artists as Quincy Jones, Joni Mitchell, SZA, Bon Iver, Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, John Mayer, Stormzy, Kirk Franklin, Oumou Sangaré, Anoushka Shankar or Hans Zimmer, selling out arenas, breaking track-count limits in DAWs, or bringing 100,000 people together in audience choirs around the world, Jacob Collier continues to push the boundaries of creative possibility, with a mission of uniting and inspiring every continent in a language beyond words. He plays, writes and communicates with a warmth, openness and drastic inclusivity that has expanded heart and minds and inspired millions, and while the four-album opus of Djesse has felt like “attending the most expansive, open-minded music festival” says Billboard, The Light For Days is the start of something distinctly new.
This fall, Jacob Collier continues a run of shows across South America, India, China, Australia and the US, where he will perform with his band, orchestras and completely solo. Find the full list of upcoming dates at jacobcollier.com/tour.
Pre-Order The Light For Days Here
The Light For Days Tracklist
You Can Close Your Eyes
Heaven (Butterflies)
Thom Thumb
Fairytale Lullaby
Norwegian Wood
Keep An Eye On Summer
I Know (A Little)
Where Did My Apple Fall?
Sweet Melody
Icarus
Something Heavy