Me Lost Me announce new record, RPG, out on July 7th via Upset The Rhythm

Led by Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent, Me Lost Me announce their upcoming fourth outing as a collective, having transitioned from being an ambitious solo project in 2017, with Jayne now regularly collaborating with acclaimed North-East jazz musicians Faye MacCalman and John Pope. Me Lost Me delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully weave together disparate genres, drawing influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music. Hauntological in part, their new record RPG is concerned with tales and with time. Are we running out of it? Does insomnia cause a time loop? Do the pressures of masculinity prevent progress? Jayne Dent asks these questions and more on RPG, her homage to worldbuilding and the story as an artform, calling back to those oral traditions around a campfire, as well as modern day video games, bringing folk music into the present day as she does so. Me Lost Me presents sound reaching in opposite directions, straddling time towards the archaic and timeless traditions of folktales, and towards the possible and potential futures of pastoral Britain and the world at large. Part speculation, part reminiscence, what results on RPG is music that sounds ultimately displaced and yet omnipresent, adjacent to a hapless Vonnegut hero whose life is scattered throughout time and history, but full of wonder and curiosity rather than fear. You can watch the Joshua Roland-directed video for the record’s first single, “Eye Witness”, below this article.

Crucially, on this new record, Dent expands her songwriting and looks towards the unreal locations of worldbuilding in video games for inspiration. She comments, “I think the main similarity is the importance of a song’s setting/environment to inform its narrative and textures, I’m often most inspired when out walking in the natural landscape, in cities and travelling to places I’ve never been before – the environment I’m in really impacts the work I make. While writing this album, however, I found myself inspired by imaginary landscapes, those in video games, paintings, etc. I was writing stories into these unreal locations instead. Even the songs inspired by real places, like The Oldest Tree Holds the Earth, have a very surreal quality to them in the songs, like they’re being warped and turned into something not of this world. I think that’s the main difference for me in terms of the thematic content and inspiration behind this album – I’ve been getting more and more interested in balancing surreal and fantastical environmental elements with ordinary and everyday settings”. RPG upends the concept of the eternal return – we may be in the midst of inevitable repetition, but we tell stories whilst awaiting the passage of time.

RPG will be released on July 7th via Upset The Rhythm. Pre-orders are now available here.

Photo credit: Amelia Read