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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jim James is on a spiritual quest of sorts, and you’re invited to listen in.
The My Morning Jacket frontman sat in the prayer room of a church in a quiet neighborhood of his hometown last month, talking about old records, religion, philosophy and his perpetual yearning for understanding.
These things color the Kentucky quintet’s much-anticipated new album, “Circuital,” and James says the record reflects a search he’s been on for some time.
“I just want to be peaceful,” James said. “I just want to find peace. I don’t want to be questioning anymore. I don’t want to be searching anymore.”
James is looking for solace in other places as well, however. He jokingly calls himself a recovering Catholic and says he has given up on organized religion. He’s now seeking comfort from other sources.
Increasingly, James is finding answers in music. Long a rock ’n’ roll fan, he started to grow uninterested and turned to different forms of music to feed his need for new sounds. His discovery of soul music has influenced his own music over the last five years. More important, it’s opened his mind about the possibilities of life.
“I’ll never forget hearing (Marvin Gaye’s) ‘What’s Going On’ for the first time and being like, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” James said.
“All this rock music is beautiful and serves a purpose, but so much of it is about pain and darkness. And when I hear ‘What’s Going On’ or when I hear some of Sam Cooke’s religious work, I hear all the mystery and passion that I loved about my rock music, but I also hear hope and praise and all this glory that I feel like I don’t hear in all this sad stuff growing up, listening to Nirvana.”
Like Gaye, Pastor T.L. Barrett also blew his mind, and helped set the stage for the recording of “Circuital,” My Morning Jacket’s first album since 2008’s “Evil Urges.”
Barrett’s little-known “Like a Ship ... (Without a Sail)” was a gospel funk masterpiece decades ago. James decided he wanted to re-create the energy and communal spirit of that and other lost gospel records, and rented the church where it was recorded.
The large, echoing gymnasium was the perfect space for the band to gather after a yearlong hiatus. There was room for everyone to set up and face each other, and they were able to strip away all the artificial separation found in a traditional studio.
Director Todd Haynes, who met James when the singer stole a scene in his Bob Dylan film “I’m Not There,” has followed the band for some time and helmed a live webcast of a performance by the band last week in Louisville.
“When I really listened to ‘Circuital’ through the first time, I really noticed it as a through-line lyrically in this record – this sense of a new beginning, of a new life, of sort of turning the page on the past and having a kind of confidence,” Haynes said. “It’s very optimistic.”
