James Vincent McMorrow

Bio

James Vincent McMorrow is an Irish songwriter and guitarist born in 1981. Thanks to his soft vocals and intense arrangements he is considered the worthy heir to Damien Rice and Jeff Buckley.

James made his debut on the music panorama with Early in the Morning which reached the first positions on the Irish charts and earned the artist a European Border Breakers Award, an invite to perform at the Royal Festival Hall, and was certified platinum. The popularity of his first album increased, even more, when MacMorrow’s rendition of Steve Winwood’s song “Higher Love” was used for the television spot of LoveFilm, a British streaming platform.

Subsequently, he retreated to a small Texan farm to write and record his second album, Post Tropical (2013). The second album could not have been more different than his debut. The sound was made of electronic beats, electric guitars, and synth, surrounding introspective lyrics, to the point that Pitchfork described it as: «The type of music you can grow up with, that becomes your own personal soundtrack».

A year later he recorded a cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”, which was used in the trailer of the sixth season of the cult series Game of Thrones, and collaborated with the Norwegian DJ Kygo for the single “Cloud Nine”.

In 2016 he released his third album, We Move. More than the last two albums, this effort managed to balance the Irish artist’s influences – ranging from classic and acoustic sounds to hip-hop and electronic – into a unique sound. McMorrow broke the traditional album-promotion-tour cycle publishing True Care (2017) after only nine months, an album that Atwood Magazine defined as «modern and intense. Aggressive and peaceful. Appropriate and eternal. It’s a collection of beautiful contradictions and perfect placements».

He came back under the spotlight a year later with the single “Me & My Friends” which was inspired by the birth of his first child and in 2020 he released “Highlights” for which McMorrow asked his fans to read out some of the single’s sentences in order to be able to shoot a music video for it despite the limitations caused by the pandemic.

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