22 August 2023 Reviews
To conclude his trilogy of studio session videos, Jamie Beale returns with ‘Cherry Cola’, his final live offering. To round off the releases, Jamie is set to release an acoustic EP entitled ‘Goodbye Terra’, allowing listeners to tune into the live recordings on DSPs.
“Cherry Cola” offers audiences just as much passion in performance as we have seen previously. This time Jamie increases the instrumentation, throwing his guitar into the mix, this addition feels crucial to representing the song in its best form with the piano and guitar bouncing off each other like old friends as the vocals between Jamie and his pianist do the same. The playful emotion of two musicians clearly enjoying playing together with the more sombre and wistful lyricism creates a pensive dichotomy that only adds to the empathy we have as a listener. The black and white imagery with both static and moving shots encapsulates the feeling that we have as a view during the song. Through the audio and visuals, we are brought into not only the performance, but into the meaning behind it giving us an affinity with the song.
Speaking about the track, he says “I wrote Cherry Cola as a reflection of a moment in time that I found myself in during a breakup. The song explores the idea of how egos can get in the way of human connection, during this period of time, I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place in the sense of knowing I was involved in a fairly unhealthy relationship, but still having a strong emotional attachment to the other person, even if you know that they don't have your best intentions at heart.
I guess for me, I was making sense of the situation within this song, and with that came the clarity needed to walk away. Even though the song is relatively sad, the message behind it is that it's okay to just accept the situation for what it is, and to try and see it as neither good or bad, but instead as something that just wasn't right for either individual.”
After touring Europe with Novatines for a number of years, Jamie now resides in Bath. It was back in the UK that he began to experiment with different styles and genres, developing a new side to his song writing. With this he brought the hardened outlook of a veteran touring songwriter blended in with a dreamy-pop sensibility. Through this new style he approached the writing for his debut album ‘Hello Nimbus’, his first full length offering that showed listeners he could reach and exceed expectations and got fans excited for future releases. These stripped-back versions of Jamie’s tracks have shown us a different side to his performance, one that showcases an equal amount of talent and one that has audiences enthusiastic to hear more from Jamie Beale.