Jamie Lenman w/support from FES.
Hot on the heels of his acclaimed fifth album The Atheist released late last year, revered alt-rock songwriter Jamie Lenman is delighted to announce a surprise new EP, with Iknowyouknowiknow set for release on 5th May 2023 via Big Scary Monsters.
To celebrate, Lenman has today revealed an official video for the EP’s lead single ‘Words of Love’, which will be released on 1st February 2023.
Rounding off the bumper news announcement, fans will also be able to catch the new material in a live setting on his newly-announced Spring 2023 UK headline tour dates and festival appearances (see below for listings).
Commenting on the new track, Lenman says: “‘Words Of Love’ is a very old song that I’ve been trying to get on a record since some time between the second and third Reuben albums, but it never fit anywhere until now. Even so, I still had to shave off a few of the post-hardcore edges to make it fit with this project, so if you think you can hear a little mid-noughties vibe in there, that’s why. For a long time this was on rough track listings for the album, but in the end we decided it would be nice to give it a starring role on the EP instead—otherwise it would have been fighting for attention.”
“Thematically it’s about somebody’s reaction to a past infidelity, their inability to get over it or even recognise their own culpability. In that way it’s very much the flip side of ‘Let’s Stop Hanging Out’, where the person is reacting to the same situation in a much more accepting way. In fact, I wrote the middle eight section at the same time I wrote LSHO, when I was in college. So they share some of the same DNA.”
The new single comes with another beautifully simple but highly effective video, once again directed and filmed by Lenman live band guitarist and visual collaborator Jen Hingley.
“The video came out of nowhere, because we’d had the tour and then Lenmania and then Christmas to deal with,” explains Lenman of the concept. “Suddenly it was the first week of January and we needed it the next week. I said to Jen on the Sunday night: ‘We’re gonna drive up to Manchester on Tuesday morning and drive back home the same day—we’ll have about six hours in between, so let’s just book a room, fill it full of lights and instruments and see what happens!'”
Lenman rounded off last year with a short run of intimate November headline tour dates, as well as ‘Lenmania III: LenManchester’, the third iteration of his now annual all-day festival featuring some of his favourite up-and-coming new artists, including Saint Agnes, Sick Joy, James & The Cold Gun, Katie Malco, Rad Pitt, Gen & The Degenerates, Brigade, and Other Half.
Recorded at The Chapel studios in Chichester over January and February 2022, Lenman’s recently released fifth album The Atheist was engineered, produced and mixed by Mark Roberts (Delta Sleep, Black Peaks, The Physics House Band) with additional engineering by Kieran Heighes, and mastered by Tom Langrish (65DOS, Fontaines D.C., Chubby & The Gang, IDLES).
The album’s anthemic lead track ‘Talk Hard’, stadium-bothering follow-up ‘Lena Don’t Leave Me’, and NHS charity single ‘Hospital Tree’ racked up coverage from Music Week, Kerrang! Magazine, Rock Sound, UPSET, Guitar World, Total Guitar, DSCVRD and more, with a hearty, ever-growing list of radio spins and playlist placements at BBC Radio One, Radio X, Kerrang! Radio, Amazing Radio, and Absolute Radio.
New EP Iknowyouknowiknow is released 5th May 2023 via Big Scary Monsters