T he video that helped Gabriella Cilmi find her way into Pure Love was years old: aged around 12, singing ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, stomping her feet and entirely caught up in the song. Watching it back meant recognising someone she had spent years trying to protect. It also reminded her how much she still had in common with that girl.
Released on 9 October, Pure Love is Cilmi’s first album in thirteen years. Recorded live to tape with producer Peter Miles at Middle Farm Studios in Devon, it draws on soul, jazz and classic rock, with influences including Carole King, Roberta Flack and Janis Joplin. For much of the recording, Cilmi sang in the room with her band, learning to leave in the vocal cracks she might once have wanted to correct.
Ahead of her November UK headline tour, Cilmi speaks to FAULT about reconnecting with her younger self, the chorus that arrived before its verses and the studio jam that made ‘Sweet About Me’ feel new again.
You’ve said you spent years believing this record meant abandoning your past. What were you worried would happen if you let that earlier version of yourself back in?
I think, subconsciously, I was trying so much to protect that younger version of m...