Four years on from The Theory of Whatever, Jamie T returns with his sixth album, Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) – RSD’s Album of the Month, and a new record heading to the racks of independent record shops on vinyl. The album began as hundreds of melodies, lyrics and scraps of poetry recorded into his phone, but for a long time Jamie Treays couldn’t work out how they fitted together. Eventually, he put the whole thing aside.
The unlikely breakthrough came while Jamie was preparing for his huge Finsbury Park show in 2023. Struggling with rehearsals, he immersed himself in Paul Weller’s music and discovered The Jam track Ghosts. Its lyrics about confronting the parts of yourself you keep hidden struck a chord. Jamie recorded his own version and, on a later solo trip to Siena, finally returned to those abandoned voice notes. “Slowly I found a way,” he says. “A song genuinely helped me put my life back together and get to where I am now.”
Those ghosts run right through the new album: growing older, old nights out, guilt, love, loss and memories of a Britain that has changed around him. Opener 3310 turns the once-essential Nokia phone, getting pissed on snakebite and the status symbols of Jamie’s youth into a typically rowdy guitar anthem, while Waist 36, Leg 32 tackles masculinity and consumerism. Chelsea Girls, meanwhile, takes aim at British tabloid culture over warm electronics with echoes of the late ’90s.
The timing feels particularly fitting. Jamie turned 40 this year, while 2027 marks 20 years since his platinum-selling debut Panic Prevention and breakthrough single Sheila. Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) isn’t an attempt to recreate that era, though. It’s a record about looking back at the person you were, working out what you’ve left behind and deciding what might still be worth keeping.
There’s even been time for Jamie to let someone else revisit his past. Earlier this year, Fred again.. reworked Jamie’s Hippodrome as Lights Burn Dimmer, turning the original’s wiry tension into something altogether more euphoric.
Twenty years after Jamie T first started turning South London life into songs, Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) finds him older, perhaps wiser, but still able to turn Nokia phones, high streets, bad nights out and the odd existential crisis into a very Jamie T record – the kind worth making a trip to your local record shop for.
Jamie T’s Ghosts (100 Days of Morning) is RSD’s Album of the Month. Available on vinyl from independent record shops – find your local shop and pick up a copy.
