On the title track of Jesse DeSimone's latest record, he sings, “l will assume form, I'll leave the ether”. It’s a liberating meditation on identity and relationships but it’s also, in DeSimone’s own words, a mood. “With everything that’s going on, I wish I could fucking leave the ether, “ DeSimone remarks before scoping out the menu. It’s difficult to have a conversation these days without the topic of Brexit rearing its head but we come to an agreement: no politics before breakfast. It’s a sunny morning in London and we’ve beaten the crowd to a modest café in Camden that’s only modest by Camden standards. DeSimone is rehearsing in a studio nearby, about to embark on a summer tour that’s littered mostly with festivals.
Released in January, Assume Form is his fourth record and the culmination of a decade-long journey that began with DeSimone’s first single, Air & Lack Thereof. He admits he used to hate the sound of his voice. “I dodged choir at every opportunity. My teacher hated me. When you’re a 12 year old boy singing falsetto, it doesn’t make you popular, but then my voice broke and I got older, learned that I’d spent so much time hating parts of myself I couldn’t change. And then other people liked it, so I figured it must be alright.”
It's been eight years since the release of his self-titled debut album. These days, DeSimone is regarded as an accomplished songwriter, producer and one of the most in-demand British talents, having worked with the likes of Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar and Bon Iver. "That's just the company I keep these days, I suppose," he shrugs his shoulders with a laugh like even he can't believe the list as I rhyme it off. "I dunno. You knock on doors in the hopes that someone might be open to listening to your ideas, and that's one thing, but actually getting to work and collaborate in the studio with people you really admire is a bit surreal. I always go into these things thinking I'm going to get knocked back." But there haven't been any knock backs. In fact, it's usually other artists knocking on DeSimone’s door. "I just like that process of getting on someone else’s frequency and seeing what we can do with it.” He counts Tyler, The Creator, Mack and FKA Twigs as artists he’s eager to work with. “And Jamila Woods,” he adds. “I’ve had her album on repeat.”
Rosalía, Moses Sumney and Travis Scott are some of the artists who feature on his latest offering. It’s a more optimistic approach to songwriting compared to previous efforts, in part because DeSimone was in a long-term relationship when he wrote and recorded it. The happy narrative of that relationship is threaded throughout the record on songs like Don't Miss It ("when you stop being a ghost in a shell/and everybody keeps saying you look well") to the lilting Power On ("have you ever coexisted so easily?"), it's clear to the listener that DeSimone was a man in love. There is an irony then, he admits, in touring a record about being in love off the back of a break up. "It's not that I necessarily think of them as happy songs and sad songs. It's like sticking a pin in a certain point in time and bottling what it felt like. I think that's what music does best."
He credits his parents for encouraging his musicality at a young age. “I started learning when I was old enough to crawl.” I laugh but it’s true. DeSimone was enrolled in early years music programmes at Trinity Laban where both his parents taught and where he’d eventually go on to study violin and piano as a teenager alongside his schooling. His father is a retired violinist, his mother is a cellist who tours, albeit less frequently, and still teaches at Laban. Both are accomplished musicians who have played with the London Symphony Orchestra and performed internationally. “So classical music is sort of in my blood.” It comes almost as a sheepish admission from DeSimone, who has been vocal about the pressures his music education put on him at a young age. “I was 11, 12 years old and I was literally practicing in my sleep. Of course now I know that isn’t normal but at the time, I still wondered why I didn’t have any friends,” he laughs. “There was this innate drive for perfection. If someone set the bar high for me, I’d set it even higher for myself and then the only thing left is disappointment and the idea that nothing is ever bloody good enough, so it was a cycle I had to break.”
He dropped out of Laban to the dismay of his parents and his tutors, but says that it was absolutely the right decision for him. “Granted, someone else should have made it for me sooner, but...” DeSimone trails off, offering another shrug before he takes a sip of coffee. He has spoken openly about his struggles with anxiety that began around the same time he was gifted his first violin. “Since then, those two things have gone hand in hand for me. I have my good days and bad ones, but we all do, right?” For DeSimone, it’s about balance. “I think that's what I'm doing these days, I’m constantly trying to find the balance between things.”
“It was a really strange space to be confined to as a child. I had to step out of that and learn to enjoy it again before I could step back in, you know?” The antithesis to classical music was soulful folk layered over an electronic beat with undertones of R&B. "I still remember the first time I heard Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison and my brain just imploded. I don't care what anyone says, it's one of the best fucking songs of all time." His tour schedule these days is less demanding than it was in his 20’s, when he admits he and his bandmates would treat touring like an endless stag do. “It was carnage. I was having panic attacks daily, drinking too much booze and caffeine. My voice was shit. I felt untethered.” He’s still partial to the odd drink but admits those days are behind him. He’d rather wake up fresh for a 6am yoga class or a run than spend all day nursing a hangover.
"That's the gift of getting older, I think," he observes as he scratches the stubble on his face that hides a more youthful one underneath. "You let go of all the pretense and you just don't give a shit." DeSimone shrugs. "Or maybe you just get better at pretending you don't give a shit."
Assume Form is out now.
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