James Vincent McMorrow

James Vincent McMorrow, the Irish singer/songwriter, works in an indie folk style marked by equal measures of dreaminess and soul. Post Tropical from 2013 and the chart-topping We Move from 2015 together cemented his status as both a critical favorite and a commercial force. Around the same period his delicate interpretations of Steve Winwood and Chris Isaak tracks found their way into major advertising campaigns. Toward the end of the decade, traces of lush pop and R&B began to color his music; after largely stepping back for two years he returned with the intimate single “Headlights” in 2020, which led into his fifth album, Grapefruit Season, the following year. In 2022 he revealed plans for two separate eight-track albums: The Less I Knew arrived that June, while Heavyweight Champion of Dublin 8 remained unreleased. Two years after that he delivered Wide, Open Horses, his first project for Nettwerk.

McMorrow did not begin playing music until his teenage years. Starting out as a drummer, he was drawn to the aggressive sounds of At the Drive-In, Refused, and Glassjaw. College softened his approach and introduced him to the more acoustic work of Sufjan Stevens and Band of Horses. At 19, after hearing Donny Hathaway’s “I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know,” he took up guitar, started writing songs, and immersed himself in the 1970s singer/songwriter catalog, especially material by female artists whose vocal range matched his own.

Once he had settled on a writing and performing approach that fit him, McMorrow began performing in neighborhood pubs and found an encouraging response. He chose to make a record, settling into a modest coastal house in Ireland where he worked with guitar, keyboard, microphone, computer, and additional instruments. There he composed and recorded the material that became his self-titled debut EP and first full-length, Early in the Morning. Believe Recordings issued the album in Ireland in March 2010; it earned strong reviews, reached a high chart position, received a Choice Music nomination, achieved platinum status, and led to shows at Royal Festival Hall and on Later…with Jools Holland. Vagrant brought the album to the United States later that year.

His profile grew further when a stripped-down reading of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” appeared in a LOVEFiLM television campaign. Demand for the cover prompted an expanded edition of the debut that included the track along with an acoustic version of “We Don’t Eat.” In 2013 McMorrow traveled to a small Texas studio to cut Post Tropical, an album whose synthetic textures and horn arrangements marked a sharp departure from his debut. Believe released it in the U.K. in 2014 and Vagrant handled the U.S. edition; the record climbed to number two in Ireland. While on tour the next year he scored Sam Benenati’s film Martha for the Campaign4Change “Mix-Up Tradition” series, recorded a cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” for the season-six trailer of Game of Thrones, and joined Norwegian DJ/producer Kygo on the third promotional single from Cloud Nine.

Throughout 2015 McMorrow toured and prepared the follow-up to Post Tropical. We Move, featuring ten tracks produced in high-gloss style by Nineteen85, Two Inch Punch, and Frank Dukes and mixed by Jimmy Douglass, appeared on Caroline in early September after the July single “Rising Water” and the August single “Get Low,” introducing stronger R&B elements. Seeking to avoid the usual release-tour-break pattern, he issued his fourth album, True Care, only nine months after We Move; the 2017 record favored a more organic sound over previous sleek productions. In 2018 he released the standalone single “Me & My Friends,” written after the birth of his first child. Another two years passed before the dreamy, intimate “Headlights” surfaced in August 2020. Five additional singles followed over the next twelve months; only the drum’n’bass track “Be Somebody,” a collaboration with Rudimental, failed to appear on Grapefruit Season, which arrived in July 2021.

In June 2022 McMorrow issued The Less I Knew, an eight-track album he produced himself at Black Mountain Studios in Ireland and that was mixed and engineered by Alex Borwick. Its self-written songs moved across R&B, indie pop, folk, and garage rock. The companion set Heavyweight Champion of Dublin 8 was recorded in the same sessions and slated for fall release but never appeared.

Still absorbed by every stage of the recording process, McMorrow made Wide Open Horses his Nettwerk debut in 2024. Across its thirteen tracks he deliberately retained “flaws and other special little moments” captured during the sessions.