James Invade America

The album hit stores earlier this month and the band are on an 18-date North American tour with special guest Ed Harcourt, their first since the release of 2008's Hey Ma.

The tour kicked off on September 20 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and wraps in Los Angeles, CA, on October 13 at the Music Box Theater. James then head overseas for numerous headline and festival dates.

The two-disc set started as separate mini albums: The Night Before was released in the U.K. in April and The Morning After is set for release there this September. The Night Before takes James' knack for uplifting songs about insecurity, disaffection and mental illness to a new level, and The Morning After has an intuitive, low-key "campfire" feel featuring some of the saddest, darkest lyrics Tim Booth has ever come up with.

The two albums were recorded in decidedly different ways. With The Night Before, the band set up an ftp site to which they all contributed, downloading and updating each other's efforts at various intervals while producer Lee 'Muddy' Baker (who produced Hey Ma as well as Booth's solo album Bone in 2004) knocked things into shape. This "virtual" recording process was inspired by the band's history of working with Brian Eno.

Coming together directly after their U.K. tour in early 2010, James recorded The Morning After in five days in a big room with no overdubs and with a view to capturing "something spontaneous." This idea came about due to the diversity of music from the ftp sessions and the realization that they were writing two completely different kinds of song. James naturally come up with beautiful, quiet pieces of music anyway, but rarely do more than one or two ever make it on to a long player; this time they wanted to make a whole album like that. The results are The Morning After and eight tracks that stretch the James envelope further than it's ever been stretched before.

'The Morning After The Night Before ' track listing:
Disc 1 - The Morning After
1 - Got The Shakes
2 - Dust Motes
3 - Tell Her I Said So
4 � Kaleidoscope
5 - Rabbit Hole
6 - Make For This City
7 � Lookaway
8 � Fear

Disc 2 - The Night Before
1 - It's Hot
2 � Crazy
3 - Ten Below
4 � Porcupine
5 � Shine
6 - Dr. Hellier
7 � Hero