Album Notes

North London artist Julian Shome’s third album is beautifully upbeat, fizzing with the energy and confidence of a singer/songwriter/producer at the top of his game.

With his first two albums, Julian made a name as an eclectic artist who could successfully nestle a 2 minute pop song next to a 7 minute cinematic instrumental, jumping around the genres but still bringing his own distinctive sound to the whole.

With the evocatively entitled, ‘It’s midnight somewhere in the world’, Julian Shome brings us an exciting collection of 10 tracks, invoking echoes of past and present. The insistently joyful first single, ‘I don’t know why I love you’ sets the tone with a clever interplay of vocals singing ‘in the round’ over a catchy bass and keyboard riff, pushed along by a 1970s casio drum machine.

With this, his third installment, Julian Shome is the exception to the ‘difficult third album’ rule and has proved once again his knack at creating sublime melodies. ‘Wrecked Sunset’ is a pacey little soul number with a tambourine driven chorus and a fabulous acoustic guitar picked outro and the brilliant ‘Cuts’ is given a sparkle with some top end glocks shadowing the vocal melody.

‘Ten Little Kicks’ shows Julian Shome’s talent at mixing a simple drum rhythm with a percussive acoustic guitar style to produce a laid back but upbeat catchy track with some great chorus harmonies. From one glorious moment to the next, the album doesn’t dwell or linger for long, with most songs coming in around 3 minutes or less.

As a diversion from the faster paced pop, there are elements of the eclectic here in the shape of ‘Novella’, a simple acoustic guitar and vocal track where Julian’s vocal is the star. Supported by piano and harp, the vocal shows a vulnerability and pleading emotion reminiscent of Johnny Cash. ‘Elephant in my room’ brings an altogether harder feel with electric guitars merging with spacey keyboard sounds and an ethereal vocal while ‘Animal’ pops up on the drums now and again!

Julian Shome has brought a fantastically light touch to this album, the first single already receiving airplay on the BBC Asian Network and BBC Introducing shows. With his first two albums doing well in North America, Europe and Asia, Julian’s music received airplay across North America and in the UK, with live sessions on BBC Essex and BBC Suffolk.