Jamie T - Don’t You Find

Search parties: put your battered torches and bone-dry whistles down. The world has found Jamie T, and he’s not hidden in a South London cavern filled with crates of booze and worn-down Streets records. Instead, the low-key video for ‘Don’t You Find’ sees him in a more mellow light - trading his strung-up bass guitar for a rather swanky Telecaster – and sitting-down with pensive visage. Most surprising, however, are the vocals. Sure - more search parties may be deployed to find any traces of urbanLAD banter or even any hints of rapping – but it’s quite obvious that they’ll come back empty-handed.

That’s not to say that the track lacks anything; it’s cloaked in a giddy airiness that makes the string-section and synths resonate, and the chorus begs to be replayed more than a Germany-Brazil match. In fact, it’s the very shocking nature of Jamie T’s transition that makes it so effective. Everyone from modern-day musos to your Nan expected him to return carrying a new record soaked in the same youthful swagger and no-worries mantra. But Jamie T doesn’t work by the rules. Rather, he’s twisted the usual recluse-to-remaking-past-material story better than the old narratives of his lethargic rap; as the title suggests, we didn’t find him in the same state as before. Instead, he’s returned with something brand-spanking different, and a track filled with a late-night wooziness that’ll make him less interesting for search parties, and more for soundtracking chilled-out summer parties as the sun goes down.