It never rains, they say, it only pours – an adage that Brisbane singer-songwriter Jarryd James knows all too well. After years of musical false-starts and frustrations, the 31-year-old has been caught up in a storm of success over the last 18 months, including a Number Two debut album, Thirty One, and 2015’s highestselling Australian single, “Do You Remember”. But there’s no sign of things slowing down. “I have just finished writing and recording five new songs in L.A.,” Jarryd reveals. “It’s been pretty crazy – like I landed home in Brisbane from a gig in New York, then four days later, I was back on a plane to L.A. for these sessions. But that’s the way it goes man – you know, you’ve just gotta jump on that and go with it.” Those five new songs form the core of simultaneous Australian and U.S. releases – an EP here called High, and a debut album also called High, in the States, which will merge the new material with the best tracks from Thirty One.

As he has done in the past, Jarryd collaborated cleverly for his latest recordings, working with some of the hottest alternative producers in North America, including the likes of Mikky Ekko (Rihanna, David Guetta) and Tobias Jesso Jnr (Adele, Sia). “It’s so weird man, it’s like a blind date,” he laughs of the hook-ups. “It can be a really strange thing to navigate and it can be really awkward, but the pay off is that when it’s the right people and it works, then it works really well.”