James Ellis Ford, who is one half of Simian Mobile Disco but these days is better known as producer to Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Beth Gibbons, has signed to Domino Records and announced a new album, Lost In Another World, which will be out August 14. The album was made over two weeks in early 2025 while he was in the hospital between rounds of chemotherapy following a diagnosis of myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive cancer of the white blood cells. He writes:
In April last year, while I was receiving treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia in St. Bart’s hospital, I started making music on the ward in between rounds of chemo, mainly as a way to lift my spirits and process what I was going through.
Within a few weeks, to my surprise, I had written and recorded an album’s worth of material which feels to me like a Polaroid of a very surreal chapter of my life.
Ford adds: “There was no filter. I just sang the first thing that came into my head into the laptop. It was a pep talk; I was telling myself I was going to be OK. It was one way of dealing with the existential dread I felt. It gave me the ammunition to fight the experience and was a distraction from it.”
The first single from the album is “Overtones,” a pretty, bucolic piece of synthpop — listen below.
James has a couple live dates coming up, including this year’s Green Man Festival in Wales.
Lost In Another World
1. Overtones
2. People Just Don’t Know
3. ‘Til Our Days Are Gone
4. Here Today
5. Parallel Dimension
6. Silver Lining
7. I Believe In You
8. This Too Shall Pass
9. Homesick For Another World
10. The Ever After
11. Did You Ever Want To Go To Your Own Funeral?
12. This Will All Be A Memory Soon
James Ellis Ford – 2026 Live Dates
Aug 22, 2026 — Green Man Festival, Wales
Sept 17, 2026 — Horse Hospital, London