The music video was filmed at the 100-year-old Nashville home where James recorded his upcoming album Medium Raw
Alabama songwriter Early James embraces jagged, moaning blues on his upcoming third album Medium Raw. Ahead of its Jan. 10 release, the guitarist drops a music video for the track “Tinfoil Hat” that documents some of the LP’s recording at a 100-year-old home-turned-studio in Nashville.
As he’s done on his previous two albums, James collaborated with Dan Auerbach, who produced Medium Raw and will release it via his Easy Eye Sound label. The Black Keys singer-guitarist appears with James in the video, alongside bassist Adrian Marmolejo, drummer Jeffrey Clemens, and percussionist Sam Bacco. “Tinfoil Hat” is a ripping bit of blues-rock played by James on an electric resonator guitar, in stark contrast with the more hushed, acoustic version of the song he performed in 2017.
“I wanted to try to find that power of when I first saw him, when it was just him and his guitar,” Auerbach says of recording James, in a statement. “After working with him a couple of times in the studio, I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to do it in the same kind of way. The comforts and luxuries of the studio, where you’re able to hear everything and make adjustments and changes, wasn’t right for this project…. I felt like we might get better results if we did it in a house.”
All of the tracks on Medium Raw were recorded live, with only two overdubs on the whole album, according to James, who also probed the ideas of online conspiracy and disillusionment that he sings about on “Tinfoil Hat” on 2022’s Strange Time to Be Alive.
“No one’s saying anything, everybody responds with a caption of a meme,” he told RS that year when discussing his song “Racing to a Red Light.” “That’s how people talk on the internet now instead of actually saying how they feel. I don’t know if that’s for fake internet points. I was just tired of that culture and all those people that perpetuate it.”
James, who will tour Europe in November, will support Medium Raw with a U.S. tour beginning in February.