James Vincent McMorrow announces two new albums set to drop in 2022

Malahide singer-songwriter and producer James Vincent McMorrow has announced not one but two new albums landing this year: The Less I Knew (out June 24th) and Heavyweight Champion of Dublin 8.

The Dubliner dropped his fifth studio album, Grapefruit Season, last July via Sony Music Ireland/Columbia Records. He's currently on a national Irish tour following the cancellation of his US and Canadian dates.

The tour kicked off in Cork's Cypress Avenue before he heads to Dublin for two nights at 3Olympia Theatre tonight (April 19 and 20). The shows will conclude in Belfast's Limelight and Limerick's Milk Market.

"I’ll try and keep this brief," McMorrow posted to his Instagram page this afternoon.

"Even before the last two years I think I’d lost sense of why I do the things I do. I love music, but I was waking up assuming each day would be like the one before. I lost the thread of what I wanted to be and what I wanted to say.

"The Less I Knew, for me, is about getting that back. It’s about going easier on yourself, realising the entire world is putting on a show, no one is immune to pressure. We contort ourselves in order to convince ourselves things are fine, or things can get better. For me, doing that meant I was missing, I had missed, so many incredible things as they were happening.

"Because the truth is it might not get better. And that’s not a depressing sentence, for me it was about not worrying on the future, when my problems might get solved. Maybe they won’t, maybe they will, finding a magical fix was only making it worse. I’m gonna try wake up every day and do my best based on what feels right in that moment.

"What I loved most about making these albums is that for the first time in my life I didn’t overthink it. Some of these songs were only finished a couple weeks ago, candid moments captured, then moved on. I can still hear the electricity in the recordings. That’s what I want music and my life with music to be about. And whatever happens after that I have zero control over."

All songs written and produced by McMorrow, and mixed and engineered by Alex Borwick. The tracks were recorded between the musician's home and Black Mountain Studios.

Revisit his 2021 Hot Press cover story in which McMorrow talks about writing his latest album, signing to a major label and overcoming self-doubt, here.