Saint Jude

London artist Saint Jude is back with his new single ‘Alright, All Tied’, an electronic indie track crammed full of soft hooks and a distinctive, intimate vocal delivery. For an artist as many-layered and sonically acrobatic as Saint Jude, every new release is somewhat of a surprise: and this is no different, while in the process of finishing his debut LP set to be released next year, Jude pulls a tune from the vaults, an autumn indie earworm to ramp up the excitement.

Saint Jude explains: “This song was written as a way to get myself out of a period of writers block last year. In this song I wanted to engage with my feelings of uncertainty that were holding me back from writing. 

“I was struggling with writing about specifics - I couldn’t seem to engage with subject matter in the right kind of way, so with this track I tried to write something non-specific, that people could project their own narrative onto, but still engages with the feelings of uncertainty and frustration that I was feeling at the time.

“I was also struggling with writing for the timbre of my own voice, and so for this track I’ve used quite a lot of processing to change the texture, I’ve layered my voice a lot as well, recording a lot of falsetto layers above the main vocal. 

“Recording with this processing on my voice made me sing in a different way and kind of eased me out of my normal style of writing that I had become frustrated with.

“I tried a lot of exercises to help me out of that creative block, and this song was the only one that was successful. Through making this song I felt like I reconnected with something, and it got me back into the flow of creating again, and I was able to finish the album that I was working on.”

n catholic lore, Saint Jude is the patron saint of lost causes; however, his musical namesake is far from that. Saint Jude has overcome trepidation to create highly focused work that teems with bright colours, shimmering textures and raw emotion at every turn. 

Sonically, Saint Jude’s music is intricate, chameleonic; his talents as a producer were inspired by sample-based greats like The Avalanches, Madlib and Four Tet, so there’s always a richness and variety to his sounds. Influenced by club music and jazz, there are also nods to contemporary masters like Radiohead, King Krule, Mount Kimbie, Jamie XX and Nicholas Jaar.

There’s a unique energy to the way he works, which could be a symptom of his forced departure from making conventional dance music; during his late teens, Jude developed tinnitus which prevented him from being able to go to clubs, gigs, or play live. Rather than killing his passions, it made him more focused, taking his sound away from the strobes and vast spaces of club settings, and into the confined spaces of his own bedroom.