Someone is the moniker for composer/musician/visual artist Tessa Rose Jackson. As Someone, she releases music and art, searching for fresh ways to fuse the two together whenever possible.
In 2020 Someone compiled the best of her two EPs, plus four new tracks, into “Orbit II”, an album about society and dealing with the world we live in right now, with a little smidgen of existential worry about the future. Then the future caught up with all of us. When COVID struck, Someone found herself “writing music non-stop, because that’s the thing that I automatically gravitate towards”.
The songs that emerged were more intimate, acoustic, suavely cinematic, velvet lined. “It’s almost like therapy,” Tessa says, “wanting to soothe and reassure myself and have that sort of intimacy.” As she put the tracks to tape, reaching out to old friends and collaborators to contribute as if to maintain bonds through lockdown, she struck upon a warm, sumptuous melodic strain akin to a futuristic Joni Mitchell. “When I need reassurance that’s the type of music I go to,” she says, “The album is called Shapeshifter because it’s about reinvention and reinventing yourself and being able to deal with the stuff the world throws at you like lockdown. Being able to wake up every day and still feel like you can do something new, or find new ways to keep that passion alive.”