Sophie Jamieson - Choosing (LP)

Some albums whisper their way in and then refuse to leave. Choosing by London singer-songwriter Sophie Jamieson is one of those keepers. Released 2 December 2022 on Bella Union, it’s a debut that favours honesty over fireworks, leaning into quiet rooms, late trams home, and the kind of reflections you only admit to yourself when the city has finally gone to sleep.

Jamieson works with a gentle palette. Her voice sits close to the mic, soft but clear, with a slight grit that catches in the right places. The arrangements are spare and patient. Piano and fingerpicked guitar take the lead, with small swells of synth and muted percussion lighting corners rather than flooding the room. It lands somewhere between indie folk and slowcore, yet it never feels mannered. You can hear fingers on strings, breath between lines, little imperfections that make the whole thing feel lived in.

Sink is a standout and a window into how the record moves. The song turns on a simple pattern that keeps returning like a tide. She doesn’t belt. She leans in, and the pressure builds anyway. When the low-end finally shudders to life, it feels earned. Boundary pulls in another direction, its title telling you plenty before the first line arrives. The track circles the idea of limits and self-preservation, and Jamieson writes about those things without cliche or self-pity. There’s calm in the delivery, even when the lyrics are walking a tightrope.

Across the album, the production respects silence. Space matters here. Guitars hang like mist, small drum hits land with the weight of a thought you’ve been avoiding, and keys glow softly in the background. Nothing is rushed. That sense of restraint lets her words carry the load. She writes about collapse and repair in a way that skips big moral pronouncements. Instead you get candlelit scenes, mornings-after, the flicker of a choice made in private and then defended in public. It suits Bella Union, a label with a long memory for artists who understand atmosphere and feel, and Choosing settles neatly into that lineage.

What keeps me coming back is the sequencing. Side A draws you in with the gentler material, while Side B nudges a bit deeper and darker, without losing the thread. You can drop the needle anywhere and find a small moment that sticks, but played front to back the arc lands. It’s the kind of record that quietly takes up residence, letting familiar lines reveal new edges over time.

On vinyl, this album makes even more sense. The quiet passages breathe, and the room around the instruments feels tangible. If you’ve been hunting Sophie Jamieson vinyl, the Choosing vinyl edition via Bella Union is worth the shelf space. I’ve spotted copies in a Melbourne record store or two, and it’s the sort of sleeve you pull from the bin, read the lyric sheet, and know exactly when you’re going to spin it. If you prefer to buy Sophie Jamieson records online, you’ll find her label store and a few local shops that ship fast across the country. For anyone in the vinyl records Australia crowd, this is a safe blind buy for nights when you want something intimate but not inert. And if you’re building up a section of thoughtful singer-songwriters, Sophie Jamieson albums on vinyl will sit comfortably alongside the quieter corners of your collection.

Choosing is a debut that doesn’t posture. It trusts stillness, it trusts small details, and it trusts the listener to meet it halfway. Jamieson isn’t trying to conquer your week. She’s offering a well-lit room and a chair, then telling you things you probably needed to hear. Take an hour, put the phone elsewhere, drop the needle, and let it unfold.