Now based in LA, indie pop artist Griffith James has lived a tumultuous and nomadic existence. His family lived as part of a “sectarian Christian culture” which saw them relocate on seventeen occasions by the time James was eighteen, ending up everywhere from Dallas to Seoul. Then a rift between the church and his family found James on the streets of San Francisco, spending nights in public parks before being taken in by a Buddhist monk.
From there, music began to fill the devotional void left behind by his religious upbringing. Across the next decade, Griffith James began to write songs as a process of healing and redemption, drawing on the classic pop of The Kinks and Harry Nilsson and the fragile vulnerability of Elliott Smith. His debut single, ‘Market and Black’ captures this style perfectly, enlisting Denver indie pop titans Tennis for production and guest vocals from Alaina Moore.
Griffith says the song is “stitched together from fragmented memories of dissolute afternoons on the needle-strewn blocks of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district,” and despite the buoyant, psych-tinged pop stylings, there is a definite sense of melancholy at its heart. The feeling that behind the smoothness and practiced grace lies a raw centre that still stings to the touch.
Please don’t regret
Out like a bird that wont fly
Please be yourself
Follow the sound that wont echo then die
The song comes complete with a video directed by Luca Venter, which stars both James and Moore. Check it out below:
The Griffith James album is out via Secretly Distribution on the 17th September.