“deeply personal, plaintive and emotional” – The Line Of Best Fit 

“sublimely wistful” – Electronic Sound 

“unique, brilliant, cinematic” – The Quietus

Saint Saviour, the alt-pop solo act from singer-songwriter Becky Jones, has announced her much anticipated fourth album, Sunseeker, for release on 22 March 2024 via VLF. Produced again by Bill Ryder-Jones, Sunseeker is an experiment in challenging dourness; eleven tracks of warm, light, baroque pop that swim in light.

Today she shares a new single from the record, “A Picture Is All I Have” – a collaboration with former The Maccabees singer and songwriter, Orlando Weeks. A soothing duet from the two vocalists, Becky’s stunning falsetto tones complement Orlando’s deeper backing atop a folky, chamber-pop dance. After a chance encounter in a playground with their kids one rainy afternoon, the pair shared notes over making music as a parent.

Speaking of the track, Becky says: “It’s about how great photographs capture the life force of a person. It marks a stage in my life where photos have become my most treasured thing”.

The song arrives alongside a new music video from Ajuan Isaac-George.

Becky said the following about the video:

“I was extremely privileged to work with Film Director Ajuan Isaac George, his excellent DOP Jasper Enujuba and crew in making the music video for “A Picture is All I Have”. Ajuan explored ways to weave a visual story around the song with grace and care. The video was shot on film in a space used by a vintage film enthusiast club. The owner kindly allowed us access to his workshop filled with reels of old film and equipment so Ajuan built a narrative around a projectionist character. We see his interaction with people and their memories as they pass through his liminal space. During my appearance I chose to present my photographs of my Grandmother in the 40’s; a teenager growing up next to a busy Airbase through WWII. My childhood imagination was enriched by her adventure stories of jazz dancing GI’s and munitions production lines. This as well as a reference to Tornatore’s ‘Cinema Paradiso’ informed the video’s conception and style.”

Listen to “A Picture Is All I Have” here and watch the video below.

“A Picture Is All I Have” is Saint Saviour’s third single this year, following the release of “Better Than”, and “Poetry”, which was described by Clash as “a song that aims for simplicity, blending the organic feel of her latter work with Saint Saviour’s innate grasp of melody.” Saint Saviour also recently filmed a stunning live version of “Poetry” with Bill Ryder-Jones which is available to watch HERE, as well as an Old Grey Whistle Test-inspired performance video for “Better Than” which you can watch HERE.

Saint Saviour today also announces 3 x UK live dates to coincide with the album release in March 2024, including a date at London’s The Courtyard Theatre on Sat 30 Mar 2024. Dates are below.

Wed 27 Mar 2024 – Manchester – The Deaf Institute
Thu 28 Mar 2024 – Stockton On Tees – The Georgian Theatre
Sat 30 Mar 2024 – London – The Courtyard Theatre

For so many of us, joylessness and cynicism are the default—it takes work to find the sunshine. For Becky Jones, it took a child. On Sunseeker, among messages to her own children, she offers all of us heirlooms of joy as well as a word of encouragement: No matter how deep it’s buried, no matter how long it’s been dormant, the sunshine can be found.

It was a revelation that came to Jones during the writing of her previous album, Tomorrow Again (which BBC Radio 6 Music’s Mark Radcliffe described as “exquisite, effortless and quite brilliant”). It was the first album she wrote after becoming a mother: a role that challenged her own dourness. On it, Jones wrote Saint Saviour’s first upbeat song: “Rock Pools”. “I realised afterwards that I was writing music to convince myself that I could find the bright mood. And it worked”, says Jones.

Sunseeker is a radical shift away from the downbeat existentialist enquiries of those previous albums towards a search for warmth. With each song, Jones aims to let the light in, applying generative sunshine to her own work and life. While existentialism had been the bedrock of her previous songwriting efforts, on Sunseeker, she allows a variety of new thought processes to creep in, as she reckons with new questions concerning religion, spirituality, and the long shadow her mother’s death has cast.

With the assistance once again of Bill Ryder-Jones, the album’s sonic palette is warm, light, clarion, taking inspiration from European ‘60s baroque pop. It is sanguine in its sense of joy — a feeling that Jones embodies in a softer, quieter tone of voice. Her words hang like simple structures in the air, pegs from which the listener can hang their own emotion.

Sunseeker is ultimately an attempt to reconcile grief and newborn life, though it lands lightly on the listener’s ears, allowing us to sit with the cycle of our lives while Jones processes her own. Sunseeker is Jones’ heirloom of joy, and it’s ready to be shared.

Sunseeker Tracklist:

1. Better Than
2. A Picture Is All I Have (feat. Orlando Weeks)
3. Be Gentle
4. I Just Can’t Take The Risk (feat. Jadu Heart)
5. Poetry
6. Let’s Go Outside
7. Gold In The Water
8. Cellophane
9. Morning Bird
10. Not Nothing
11. Little Bee