After headlining to over 40,000 people at London’s Finsbury Park in June 2023, Jamie T suddenly found himself in a moment of repose and respite. His personal and professional schedules had calmed for what felt like the first time since the release of his Mercury-nominated debut, Panic Prevention, 16 years earlier. It was also around this time that he recovered approximately 1,000 ideas for songs, previously thought lost to a faulty voice note app. With time to reflect on what he found, the South London singer-songwriter born Jamie Treays began to process some old memories, writing songs while making sense of his past. If the voice notes are the “ghosts” in the title of his sixth album, then the “100 days of morning” reflect both the hours he kept while writing—he’d start late at night and finish in the early hours—and the sense of a new dawn that arrived as he began to parse his history into what had shaped him. Naturally then, there’s vivid nostalgia to a record that opens with “3310,” a song named after Nokia’s Y2K handset. On “Chelsea Girls,” a bleary-eyed cousin of Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls,” Treays shouts out pre-Millennium references including Denise Van Outen, Dave Courtney, The Streets, and “that love like Björk and Goldie,” while thrumming Damon Albarn co-write “Cocktail” acknowledges that not everything you’ve done need define you. “Remember who I was, remember who I am,” sings Treays while trawling through the debris of a night out marked by regret. Inspired by a pep talk that a doubt-wracked Treays gave himself ahead of the Finsbury Park show, tender closer “Tallahassee” drops a spoken-word delivery over elements of Canadian folk singer Leif Vollebekk’s 2017 single of the same name. Here, Treays is caught between imposter syndrome and knowing his worth. “I’m the soundtrack to your university years,” says the songwriter behind such student-dance-floor classics as “Sheila” and “Zombie,” before deciding, “I’m just a plagiarist.” But three years on from Finsbury Park, his words echo with more conviction than despair—the sound of a man understanding and embracing his own complexities. Our Favorite Track: Listening to “Ghosts,” a zesty cover of The Jam’s 1982 track, it’s hard to escape the impression that Treays is addressing himself with Paul Weller’s call to liberate your truest self.