17 June 2023 - 0 Comments

Gold Certified New Zealand music award winner Jamie McDell has released her stunning EP, Beach House out today worldwide on all digital platforms. Jamie has been a working musician for close to 15 years and this collection of songs came from the weight of navigating a career as a creative, especially under the limitations of the pandemic, that left her feeling exhausted and burnt out on the fickleness of the music industry. In January 2023, when travel restrictions had eased, McDell returned home to New Zealand, taking the opportunity to connect with family and travel across the ditch (the Tasman Sea) to record some new tracks. 

The sanctuary of being at her husband’s family-built beach house gave her the space to express and exercise her self-doubt through songwriting. She was also able to reconnect in person with her producer and manager Nash Chambers at his sister, Kasey Chambers’ studio to record the songs that would become the Beach House EP. The title track, Beach House, is a catharsis of feeling born out of the frustration Jamie had towards the fickle nature of the music business. At the time of writing the song, she had serious thoughts about leaving music and was three months into a job search. The second song Madeline started to come together while Jamie was still living in Canada. It is about the road less traveled and the growth and fulfillment that transpire from uncertainty. It was inspired by a group of women in her friend circle, all of whom had left bad relationships out of a determination to be anything but confined or defined. The third song that rounds out the EP is a cover of Tracy Chapman’s Talkin' Bout a Revolution. Jamie was drawn to the message and ethos of the song, which resonates just as strong, if not stronger now than when it was originally released in 1988.

McDell, who is now 30 started her career at 16, was signed by EMI, and went on to achieve Gold Certified Album sales and receive multiple New Zealand Music Award nominations. She abandoned her major label roots to pursue music that was closer to her heart and began writing and recording in Nashville. In March 2017 Jamie made a trip to Nashville, looking for a change of scenery and to connect with the environment that birthed much of the music throughout her youth. It’s here she wrote the songs that would make up the fabric for her third record Extraordinary Girl. She met with ex-pat Australian producer Nash Chambers for coffee one day and decided they shared the same musical values. Not long after that meeting McDell arranged to fund her first independent record Extraordinary Girl, which was recorded over the space of two days at House of Blues studio in Nashville. She then returned home for the albums’ release, promotion, and supporting tours throughout New Zealand and Australia.

After opening a U.S. tour for Robert Ellis (Texas Piano Man) in early 2020, she would then visit Nashville once again, team up with Chambers in his eastside studio, and gather the amazing musical talents of Dan Dugmore, Jedd Hughes, Dennis Crouch, Shawn Fichter, Jerry Roe, Jimmy Wallace, Tony Lucido and Ross Holmes, along with guests such as the McCrary Sisters, Robert Ellis, Erin Rae, and Tom Busby (Busby Marou). Her self-titled album, Jamie McDell, released in 2022, contains some of McDell’s most brutally honest writing and performances, while the production takes the listener on a modern journey through 70s folk and country blended with a healthy dose of roots and rock. This record became Jamie’s fourth full-length release that was praised by media from around the globe. 

Jamie is returning to the U.S. playing songs from this EP at her first shows on U.S. soil since early 2020. 

TOUR DATES

June 21 - The Station Inn, Nashville, TN w/ Jack Schneider

June 22 - Old Town School of Folk Music w/ Adeem the Artist, Chicago, IL 

June 23 - Moccasin Creek Festival, Effingham, IL 

June 30 - House Concert, Houston, TX

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