Hamish is a Stroud, England-based singer-songwriter born in 1972, who felt he’d missed the golden run of the late 60s and 70s and spent years immersing himself in it anyway, building a record collection running from ABBA to Zappa and drawing direct inspiration from Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell, alongside more recent touchstones like John Grant and Radiohead. He also founded Stroud folk-funk outfit The Mad Cows in 2000, a band that became a genuine festival draw in its own right. After years spent hitchhiking the world with a guitar, he now lives in a Cotswolds cottage, where he still plays music with friends on his deck. New single “Singing In My Soul,” released today, pulls from his 1999 debut album, Picture In My Bag, arriving 27 years after fans first started asking when he’d finally put out another record.
Singing In My Soul
The song was produced by Les Penning, best known for his work with Mike Oldfield, and recorded at Hatfield Court, a sprawling, half-ruined Herefordshire mansion belonging to an eccentric friend, writer and master accordionist Jeremy Sandford. The setting shaped the recording directly, guitar and vocals tracked live in an ancient oak-paneled drawing room with a wood-fired Aga sitting in the middle of the room, local musicians gathered around scraps of hastily written notes rather than formal charts. Violinist and saxophonist Feliks Tabis contributed key instrumental work, and a visiting children’s choir even makes an appearance elsewhere on the album. That raw, of-the-moment recording environment gives
“Singing In My Soul” a genuine, unpolished energy that’s helped it endure for decades. The track became a hit on New Zealand’s folk charts while Hamish was traveling there, eventually earning a sync placement on a major television programme, and it’s remained a fixture at weddings and events ever since its original release, a testament to just how much genuine connection it still creates with listeners all these years later.
Final Thoughts
“Singing In My Soul” is a warm, lived-in slice of folk-rock history that’s clearly earned its staying power, and its re-release feels like a fitting reintroduction ahead of Hamish’s long-awaited follow-up album, Significant Others. You can stream “Singing In My Soul” and preview the upcoming album on Spotify.
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