“Exploring the guitar more fully than ever before”: Jacob Collier’s forthcoming album is all about the acoustic guitar

Last year, seven-time Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier wrapped up his sprawling Djesse album series, which spanned four records across seven years and saw collaborations with hundreds of artists.

The English music whizz would be forgiven for having a lengthy break from songwriting, but creativity seems to be the very lifeblood that courses through his veins, so we’re not all that surprised he’s already announced another record.

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Things will be a little different this time around though, in that the album – The Light For Days – will centre around just one instrument: the acoustic guitar.

Arriving 10 October, the LP is composed of six new original songs, as well as five handpicked covers of his longtime idols, including James Taylor, John Martyn, The Beatles and The Beach Boys.

While his Djesse series exerted a pressure for him to “outdo himself” every time and “continue exceeding the infinite possibilities, limitless capabilities and boundless expectations”, The Light For Days sees Collier “freeing himself to be himself in his rawest, purest form”.

The inspiration to begin writing the album came during a brief visit to his home city of London. While there, he explored his 5- and 10-string Taylor guitars “more fully than he ever had before”, including through alternate tunings like DAEAD.

But when it came time to record the album, the entire process was completed in just four days. Again, not that surprising for a musician of Collier’s calibre.

“Since completing the Djesse album series, my imagination has been brimming with all sorts of ideas of things I’d like to do and create,” Colliers says. 

“One of the things I’ve wanted to really focus on, and zone into, is the limitation of a single instrument. The acoustic-guitar sound world has been a foundational aspect of my music universe for as long as I can remember, and so I set myself the challenge of making a full-length album, using almost entirely the five-stringed guitar, in just four days. 

“As a result I had to work so fast that I couldn’t second-guess anything – I just had to roll with and trust the process. The results are warm, scrappy, imperfect, but very close to my heart.”

Jacob Collier is about to release the latest preview from the album, an original track named I know (A Little). You can watch that below when it drops at 5PM BST.

Check out the full tracklist for The Light For Days below:

1. You Can Close Your Eyes
2. Heaven (Butterflies)
3. Thom Thumb
4. Fairytale Lullaby
5. Norwegian Wood
6. Keep An Eye On Summer
7. I Know (A Little)
8. Where Did My Apple Fall?
9. Sweet Melody
10. Icarus
11. Something Heavy 

Jacob Collier is set to play a series of shows this autumn across South America, India, China, Australia and the US. Head to his website for a full list of dates, and to preorder The Light For Days.