Visionary Dutch-British singer songwriter and composer Tessa Rose Jackson announces new tour and releases live EP – The Lighthouse With Strings (Live at Metropolis) out now, and releases the first video: “Gently Now”
Tessa Rose Jackson is returning to the road this autumn and taking her most acclaimed record apart to build it back up again. The Lighthouse With Strings (Live at Metropolis) reimagines seven songs from her third studio album, The Lighthouse, recorded live in a single day with a string quartet, guitar and Wurlitzer at Metropolis Studios. Stripped of studio polish and captured in one take, the strings don’t just accompany these songs they elevate them, clearing space for Tessa’s voice to shine and letting each song’s meaning cut even deeper.
Recast for strings, the songs pull the album’s emotional core even closer to the surface. The title track arrives with a new sense of gravity; “Gently Now” sits with the slow work of growing older and more comfortable with grief. “Built To Collide” is a reminder that life deserves to be taken seriously, and so does knowing when not to and “By Morning” aches with the particular sting of losing an argument. “The Man That Wasn’t There” is a dark folk piece in the vein of Sharon Van Etten, pastoral but unearthly and “When Your Time Comes” turns the lens outward, asking the listener how they picture their own final moments, before “Wild Geese” closes the EP on a stately, Gallic-flecked high.
The Lighthouse itself marked a turning point for Jackson: after years releasing under the pseudonym Someone, she returned to her own name to make her most personal record yet, distilling that project’s spirit of invention into something rawer and more direct. “It’s an album that talks about death, but not in a purely dark sense,” Jackson says. “For me, it’s also about the celebration of life, embracing fears, identity, and the stories we inherit.”
Since the album’s release, Tessa has taken the songs across the festival circuit, with recent appearances at Latitude and Deershed. The Lighthouse With Strings (Live at Metropolis) is the first taste of what’s next: this autumn and winter, Tessa takes the string quartet setup on the road, performing these songs exactly as they were recorded; live, together, strings and all.
THE LIGHTHOUSE WITH STRINGS TOUR Tessa Rose Jackson, performing live with string quartet:
15 Sept – Liverpool, Music Room
16 Sept – London, St Pancras Old Church
17 Sept – Birmingham, Kitchen Garden Cafe
You can find tickets here
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