London is tough, no one would ever deny that.
For a newcomer to the city, London can be a formidable, leviathan like creature, dragging itself from the Thames and extending outwards in dense, spiralling avenues. It is – in short – testing circumstances.
Daniel James arrived in London two years ago, a young songwriter with everything to prove. Building his world from the ground up, the Northern Irish artist has sculpted his own sound, pieced together his own outlook on life.
Now he seems to be getting somewhere. A buzz is gathering around the precocious artist, with his carefully honed songs displaying a genuine depth in both feeling and imagination. As an introduction, Clash are able to to offer up new track 'A Lonely Man' – a track which emphasises the narrative power of Daniel James' songwriting.
"'A Lonely Man' is based on parallel stories" he explains. "One part expresses my own struggles with everyday life and another part expresses my imagination of what 'struggling' actually entails. Researching old reference books and documentaries, I focussed on the struggle of slaves in chain gangs in America in the nineteenth century. I tried to harness old slave/gospel type vocal rhythms in the track to reflect the parallel story. 'A Lonely Man' is a story of one man's battle , both real and imagined."
Listen to it below.
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