RJ Thompson has unveiled his latest project, ‘Live At Abbey Road’, featuring live, re-recorded versions of tracks from his previous two albums.
The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist make his UK Top 10 breakthrough in 2020 with his second LP, ‘Lifeline’, and returned to the Top 40 last year with its follow-up, ‘Yearbook’.
Featuring 10 songs, his latest project was recorded completely live in Studio Two at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, including the brand new track Headspace and a cover of Rolling Stones’ classic You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
Of his success to date and the latest move in his career, RJ says: “I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved with ‘Yearbook’ and ‘Lifeline’. To have both albums reach No. 1 in the Official UK Download Charts and Top 40 in the Official UK Album Charts is a dream come true, but if it’s possible, I think I’m even more proud of what we achieved at Abbey Road.
“A bunch of friends descending on London, setting up in the most famous room in the world, singing into microphones and playing instruments that the greats have played, and recording something really special… completely live.”
As with previous releases, physical editions of ‘Live At Abbey Road’ also feature groundbreaking augmented reality technology, with its artwork and bonus content changing with the time of day, weather and holiday via the accompanying free IOS and Android app.
‘Live At Abbey Road’ is available across formats via RJ’s online store.
Last year, RJ spoke to RETROPOP about integrating revolutionary augmented reality technologies into his projects, admitting: “It’s hard to sell music nowadays, because everyone can get it for free or on streaming platforms. So it’s difficult to find a pathway and make a career in music
“I’ve got a friend who’s an app designer and does all of this augmented reality stuff, and we came up with this concept where basically, because your phone is connected to the date and the time and the weather, we could figure out a way to find out what the date and the time and the weather is on the phone and when you hover your phone in front of the artwork, it would display the front cover that’s relevant,” he explained.
“We filmed 300 different variations of different different, like different times of the day, just me like writing songs, the writing on the chalkboard, me playing guitar, whatever, at different times of the day, different weathers, different times of the year. So basically, when people buy the record, they can use the app and hover over it to see up to 300 versions of the front cover, depending on where they are.”
“I thought it’d be a really cool experience for people, because the front cover is basically a metaphor for how I wrote the album; locked away in a room, unable to do much, but dreaming of this big world.”
