Jeremy Warmsley offers up a spectral pop paean to new beginnings with “January”

Centring on the refrain “What’s a new start without a new heart?” the aptly-titled track is about navigating the spectres of the past in order to focus on the year ahead.

“The song is about trying to make a new beginning but being bogged down by your history,” Warmsley says. “The narrator is visiting their hometown over the holiday period but gets stuck there when they attempt to return home on New Year's Day.”

Unravelling across five minutes, it’s a serene effort marrying wisps of lap-steel and piano with warm brush drums and spacious textures. The ending is a luminous crescendo cresting in rich vocal harmonies and subtle organ patterns conjuring peak-era Talk Talk.

“My last song “Moment” was the excavation of a split-second, trying to stretch out the stream of consciousness that might flow through your mind over the course of a single breath into a nine-minute song,” Warmsley added. “That idea inspired me for my new project to do the exact opposite: try to compress giant yawning acres of time into much smaller frames.

“My idea was to write a song that encapsulated or exemplified a much longer period of time into a single song or track. It was quite convenient to think of doing that on a monthly basis, with each song representing a new month. My plan is to do one new song a month for the whole year, with each track flowing naturally into the next.”

"January" is out now. Find Jeremy Warmsley on Facebook.