Following the release of the While You Lay Sound Asleep EP back in March, Morgan Harper-Jones returns with brand new single, ‘Swimming Upstream’, out now on Play It Again Sam.

Recorded in Brighton, ‘Swimming Upstream’ came out of ongoing sessions with producer Iain Archer (James Bay, Snow Patrol, Lisa Hannigan) and serves as a taste of what’s to come from Morgan in 2023.

Morgan says of the new single: “‘Swimming Upstream’ is mostly fictional. It came from an injury I had last year which took about 10 months to fully heal. I was so pissed off that I was missing going out dancing or hiking or on holidays with friends. And I met someone who had a terrible injury when they were younger, but it led them down a particular path in their life and they said how if it hadn’t happened they’d be totally different. I become a bit obsessed with reading about people who had suffered but were ultimately grateful for their suffering because of where it led them when they let go of fighting it.

“I’m not saying that bad things happen for a reason, I don’t think that’s very empathetic or even true. For me the frustration of what I was missing was hurting me more than the injury itself and opening up the idea that this could give me opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise made things calmer and smoother for me. It’s probably the first time I started to actively look for and appreciate what is, rather than obsessing over and struggling against what isn’t.”