Sophie Jamieson Still Wants to Share

Longing, connection, and the quiet resilience that keeps us reaching for more.

In Sophie Jamieson’s world, attachment is not a fleeting feeling—it’s a terrain to be explored, unpicked, and understood. Her album, I Still Want to Share, doesn’t shy away from this complexity. Instead, it holds space for the push and pull of longing, the quiet ache of unrootedness, and the blurry lines of care and control that weave through relationships. Recorded alongside Grammy-winning producer Guy Massey and composer Josephine Stephenson, the album brings together warm, autumnal hues and cool, starry nights—both sonically and emotionally. It’s as introspective as it is expansive, carrying us deeper into Sophie’s inner world while inviting us to reflect on our own.

We chatted with Sophie about the stories behind the album’s shimmering tracks, the collaborations that shaped it, and how music continues to help her navigate the beautiful mess of being human.

Photo by: Tatjana Rüegsegger

Pili Alvarado: Your upcoming album, I still want to share, centers around themes of attachment. Can you elaborate on how attachment, rather than love, became a focal point for this record?

Sophie Jamieson: For most of the writing period, I thought the theme was love, that’s what I was calling it. I thought it was about learning how to love, because I had largely felt that I’d failed at love over and over in life. There was a point when I stopped seeing it this way, and started to see the thread that ran through my relationships rather than the gaps between them. There was a common sensation through all of them, of reaching for something that largely wasn’t there or of a need for something that nobody could give. I came to understand very late in the album-making that this was not love, but something else, but it was also not necessarily failure, just who I am.

PA: You’ve described the album as having a mix of “autumnal colors” and “dark, starry skies.” What kind of imagery or emotions were you hoping to evoke with these contrasting visuals?

SJ: None of this was particularly thought-through or planned, but some songs just called for warmth and woodiness while others called for space, oddness and playfulness. Guy and I have reflected on how somehow we made chapters of songs that fitted in one camp or the other. I guess we developed a palette of some kind as we went along, and were able to return to that as we worked through the album. The first song we recorded was “Vista”, which I think is the epitome of the “dark starry skies”, involved a lot of joyful play and gave us a path we could delve back down at future points in the process.

PA: The lead single, “I don’t know what to save,” feels like a moment of freedom and release. How did the writing process for this track come about, and did it mark a turning point in the album’s creation?

JS: I wrote this at a point when I was really struggling to move through heartbreak. I felt very tangled with a person whose love was consistently elusive, and which I felt I desperately needed in order to be able to relax into being. The relationship revealed to me so much anxiety in the way that I love people. In a way, I think the whole record pivots on it, the hope, the thrill, the unfulfilled longing, the grief and the relief in separation. And through all this, your feet don’t really touch the ground. I guess this song explores one small stage in that cyclical process.

PA: You worked with Grammy-winning producer Guy Massey and composer Josephine Stephenson on this album. What was it like collaborating with them, and how did their contributions shape the final sound?

JS: They were both a total dream to work with. I’d come to Guy having tried to make the album with someone else a few months previous, and come out with my confidence totally crushed. Guy was kind, he listened, and he made me feel valued, confident and comfortable enough to really play and experiment. You can hear this in a lot of the arrangements as we played with sounds I’ve never used before, as well as getting me to play bass through the whole record, which I didn’t know I could do.

Josephine is a very old and dear friend of mine, we haven’t worked together in this capacity before but I’ve been a huuuge fan of those she has worked with and her arrangements for them. So it was interesting for both of us to do this together. I was worried about scaring her off with my awful anal attention to detail, but she too listened so respectfully to what I had imagined, took that and made it bloom with her own instinct and distinctive touch. I think she added real depth, richness and elasticity that I didn’t even realise I’d wanted.

PA: There’s a raw honesty in your music, especially when dealing with complex emotions. How do you approach vulnerability when writing and sharing these deeply personal songs?

JS: I generally don’t think about it. Vulnerability comes hand in hand with writing, it doesn’t really do much for me without it. In terms of sharing - I’ve been doing this long enough to have grown a thick skin of separation. Maybe it’s a bit weird or unhealthy… but It’s been essential to survive certain releases. My debut album really toughened up that skin, as I found myself totally exposed to some often painful assumptions based on things I had carefully been unexplicit about. I understand now that how my vulnerability is received is neither my responsibility nor within my control, and I feel weirdly accepting of that.

PA: Your debut album, Choosing, touched on themes of self-kindness and growth. Do you see I still want to share as a continuation of that journey, or does it mark a new chapter for you?

JS: Early on in the writing process, I saw this as a totally new chapter - but over time it’s become clear to me that it’s really all the same thing, just a different layer. I’m coming to realise that I am always writing about how to hold pain alongside love and life. The question of how to get around it, how to live through it, exploring its inevitability. This album, I think, digs a little deeper than the last one, into the “why” of pain, and hides a little less.

PA: You’ve mentioned that attachment often feels like control and need rather than love. As someone who has struggled with anxious attachment in relationships, I completely relate to that feeling. How has your understanding of attachment evolved throughout the writing process of this album, and how do you think music has helped you make sense of those emotions?

JS: Writing this record has held up a mirror to all my relationships and the anxiety within them all. It’s also helped me to understand my responsibility for this anxiety, as well as the fact that it is something that is never going to go away. Bringing these songs together has helped me realise that my sense of ungroundedness is part of who I am, it’s something I will take with me into every relationship, that I have to manage and work through with a lot of love and gentleness.

PA: The metaphor of never fully arriving, of always feeling unrooted, resonates deeply with me—especially when navigating attachment and the desire for stability. Do you feel that sense of unrootedness has shaped how you connect with others, both in your personal life and through your music?

JS: Absolutely. I am constantly looking for somewhere to land, both in my personal life, my music career, my homes, everything. And yet, I can’t bear to be tied down :) And I need a lot of alone time. I’ve started to learn that this is just the way I am built. My parents are both immigrants, I’ve never felt at home anywhere other than East London where people are from everywhere and people are on the move. I crave home but then I get restless when I have it.

PA: I know how attachment can sometimes blur the lines between care-giver and child in relationships. How do your personal experiences with family and close relationships find their way into your songwriting, especially when exploring those blurred roles?

JS: I never realised I was exploring these roles until the songs were written. And in many of the songs, I didn’t even know I was writing about family. One day I read through all the lyrics of all the songs, and realised that the lines from those about romantic relationships could easily be about the familial ones. That was very revealing. And interesting. Family dynamics largely manage to go disguised in songwriting, I think, but they are peppered throughout almost everything.

PA: The album title, I still want to share, suggests an enduring hope in the face of all the emotional complexity you explore. How does this sense of hope influence how you approach relationships, both in life and in music?

JS: Well, you have to come to these things with some hope and positivity :) I also am an irrepressible romantic, and I think as an anxiously attached person in a way I survive on the hope that somebody will ease some of my need to belong. I’ve been working for years on easing this myself, but am coming to understand that I simply need some outside help, that I will always be looking for it, and that when I find it, it will never be enough…

PA: Outside of music, what brings you comfort or inspiration when you're feeling unrooted or overwhelmed?

JS: Talking to close friends is probably the first thing. Then maybe eating. Stretching has become an incredibly important daily thing to ground in the body. Running in the marshes near my house, also painting empty jars to make tealight holders. Inspiration comes from listening to music, reading, going to gigs, and silence, when I can bear it.

Through candid reflections on anxious attachment and the ever-present desire for connection, Sophie offers a raw, honest look at the ways we attempt to tether ourselves to others and the inevitability of always falling a little short. But it’s not all heartbreak and tension. At its core, I Still Want to Share is about hope—the hope to belong, to be seen, and to share, even when the road feels endless.

 You can stream the album now on Spotify.