The end of a chapter inspired an exciting new journey for Morning Midnight with their debut track ‘Ancoats Junction’. It opens with with an evocative image of two people sheltering from a torrential downpour in the centre of Manchester. But that unity evaporates before the song is out. As vocalist/guitarist Jordan Scott’s horrowful lyric suggests (“Say goodbye, I’ll find my own way home”), what was a life-affirming connection is now over. It’s been a year since Scott and bandmate Jess Pascale wrote the song. But now their positive outlook stands in stark contrast to the emotions it explores. They share an air of quiet confidence that they have something special going on. That’s underlined by the strength of their forthcoming debut EP ‘Swimming Lessons’, which melds Scott’s classic songcraft with imaginative production flourishes from Pascale. Morning Midnight is bigger than the sum of the duo’s talents. Scott cites Frightened Rabbit and John Martyn as influences, while Pascale’s production and mixing comes straight from the world of hip-hop and electronic music. Eclectic shared interests such as Sylvan Esso, Kanye West and Imogen Heap also inform their distinctive sound. “‘Ancoats Junction’ felt like the moment where we cracked the code,” says Scott. “That’s when we felt we could both exist within a song and be really proud of the result. I like the idea of having that balance; the songs are strong enough on their own, but the production also adds a lot.” That trait is underlined throughout ‘Swimming Lessons’. ‘You and I’ digs deeper into singer-songwriter territory, touching on vintage soul and country, but Pascale’s invention shines through on every song without ever being ostentatious. The looped percussion on ‘Ancoats Junction’ references hip-hop, while auto-tuned vocals on ‘Heart’s A Mess’ turn a minimalist idea into a fully-realised production. Her love of sampling and repurposing their own piano and guitar recordings is prevalent throughout, see the atmospheric opener ‘First Down’ and the textured ‘Not Alone Pt. 2’. Scott is coy about dissecting the lyrics of any particular song, preferring to leave people to interpret them as they see fit. The EP as a whole charts the broad stages of a break-up but, he affirms, “each is about a specific person and what I was feeling in that time.” Songwriting, he adds, is a cathartic process. “I’m not very good at internalising situations or emotions. Getting it out into a song is part of the process of figuring it out.” As a result, ‘Overgrown’ delivers an uplifting sense of closure.

Originally from Birkenhead (Scott) and Lancaster (Pascale), the pair met after she heard one of his demos and quit university to make music with him. Their first band came to a natural end, so the duo relocated to Glasgow in search of a fresh new start. They honed their sound by experimenting in their home studio, “mixing textures like piano & acoustic guitar with auto-tune and hip-hop drums.” Echoing the duality of both members’ shared input, the Morning Midnight name comes from Jean Rhys’ 1938 novel ‘Good Morning, Midnight’. It all adds up to a new dawn for the pair, who have every reason to be optimistic about their future.