On Wednesday night, Jim James made his way to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform a track off his upcoming stripped-down album, UNIFORM CLARITY, a companion piece to his prior 2018 release, UNIFORM DISTORTION. For his Tonight Show spot, James performed a sparse, heartfelt acoustic rendition of “Over And Over”, as it appears on UNIFORM CLARITY, complete with a crew of colorfully illuminated backup vocals by The Resistance Revival Chorus. You can check out Jim James’ late-night TV performance below:
Jim James – “Over and Over” (Acoustic)
[Video: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon]
As Jim James explained of the new acoustic release upon its announcement,
The idea for UNIFORM CLARITY came from UNIFORM DISTORTION, an album of intentional chaos/dirt: literal and figurative distortion of lyrics and sound meant to echo and hopefully shed some light on the twisted times and distortion of the truth in which we now live. UNIFORM CLARITY is meant to illuminate the other side – raw and real, but very clear, much like in the early days of recording where all you could hear was the truth because there were no ways to manipulate recordings in the studio. Working with Shawn Everett, we created a document style recording of these songs- just vocals, guitar and the space itself- no special FX. A crystal clear illustration of the flawed beauty of what a song starts off as or sometimes remains- a thought. a seed. a light from the womb of the universe brought to life down here on earth.
Jim James is preparing to head out on a very special tour. Dubbed The Future Is Voting Tour, it will include six nonpartisan multi-artist shows in college towns in electoral “swing districts” in an effort to promote voter participation in the important electoral areas. Each of the tour’s six stops will be part concert, part town-hall meeting. The meeting segment of the shows will include a non-partisan forum where candidates and their representatives will be invited to speak directly to students and take their toughest questions.
As James noted in a press release announcing the tour,
The importance of getting involved at this moment in time cannot be overstated. This isn’t only a Get Out The Vote concert. This is a learning moment aimed at college students to motivate them to vote, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. Each stop on the tour purposefully takes place in a contested electoral district or state for this important midterm election, where students and young voters have the ability to dramatically affect the outcome of this tremendous moment in history. Please join special surprise guests and myself at these events with the goal of truly inspiring thought, discourse, and participation.
Jim James’ UNIFORM CLARITY comes out this Friday, October 5th. For more information about the new companion piece to UNIFORM DISTORTION, head over to James’ website.
[H/T Rolling Stone]