Tom Mish Full Circle
Eight years is a long time to wait for a second album. But Tom Misch was not simply taking his time — he was finding his way back. The South London musician who built a devoted following through bedroom beat tapes, a jazz conservatoire education he abandoned after a year, and a debut album that landed at number eight on the UK charts, stepped away from the limelight as the pressure of a growing career began to erode something more important. Full Circle, released March 27th via Beyond The Groove and AWAL, is the record that came out the other side of that reckoning. It is, without question, the most honest thing he has ever made.
The gap between Geography (2018) and Full Circle was not entirely silent. There was What Kinda Music, his Ivor Novello-nominated joint album with jazz drummer Yussef Dayes, which peaked at number four and demonstrated what Misch could do when freed from the obligation of being a solo frontman. There was Supershy, his dance music alias, an outlet for a different kind of pleasure. But Full Circle is the record that required him to stand still and look at himself — and he has done so with a clarity that surprises.
The Decision to Keep It Simple
The most significant creative choice Misch made going into this album was to step away from the production-led process that defined his earlier work. Where Geography was built around loops, layers, and the meticulous architecture of bedroom production, Full Circle begins with piano and guitar — and largely stays there. He recorded live takes with a full band, minimised comping for a raw and spontaneous feel, and reached for a vintage U47 microphone throughout, chasing the warmth and clarity of 1970s hi-fi records.
The influences shifted accordingly. Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and John Martyn replace the J Dilla and jazz guitar touchstones of his earlier years — a folk-flecked palette that initially sounds like a departure but gradually reveals itself as something more like a homecoming. He worked closely with co-writer Matt Maltese, developed material in Nashville with producer Ian Fitchuk, and made the record across four locations: London, Cornwall, Portugal, and Nashville. Each contributed something to the texture of the finished work.
“It’s very vulnerable and personal. I’ve made it over the last three years and I’m excited to share it with you.”
What the Songs Carry
The eleven tracks on Full Circle explore the territory that opened up during Misch’s time away: family, friendship, nature, and the quieter work of finding your way back to yourself. “Sisters With Me,” the lead single, was written while Misch was living in his family home alongside his siblings for the first time as adults — an unplanned act of subconscious creativity, he has said, that captures the oceanic depth of sibling bonds with a directness his earlier writing rarely attempted. The accompanying video, filmed in the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District by filmmaker Juliet Klottrup, gives the song room to breathe in the landscape it deserves.
“Red Moon” and “Old Man,” released in early 2025, had already signalled a shift — existential in tone, acoustic in texture, unhurried in a way that felt earned rather than affected. Album centrepiece “Goldie” arrives as the moment where everything clicks: an acoustic guitar strum that has become the signature of this record, carrying Misch into territory where he sounds, for the first time, like a confident frontman rather than a gifted instrumentalist fronting his own session. The closing “Days of Us,” featuring saxophonist Kaidi Akinnibi, nods back to Misch’s jazz roots without retreating into them. It is a graceful exit.
Why It Matters
Tom Misch’s journey is not unique — artists burn out, step back, reassess — but what makes Full Circle worth paying attention to is what he chose to do with the space he created. He did not reinvent himself. He did not chase a trend. He went to Cornwall and Portugal and Nashville, sat with a guitar, and wrote songs about the things that had actually happened to him. The result is an album that does not sound like a comeback. It sounds like an arrival.
For listeners who came to Misch through the smooth jazz-pop of Geography, Full Circle will require a small recalibration. The grooves are sparser, the arrangements less ornate, the voice more exposed. But those willing to meet the record on its own terms will find something more durable than anything he has previously released — eleven songs that, as Bandcamp’s own notes put it, invite you to inhabit his world or trace your own path within it. That universality is hard to manufacture. Misch has not manufactured it. He has lived it.
Final Thoughts
Full Circle is out now. It is the sound of an artist who went quiet, did the work, and came back with something to say. In a music landscape that rewards constant output, that kind of patience is rare. So is the record it produces.
- Standout tracks: “Sisters With Me,” “Goldie,” “Old Man,” “Days of Us”
- Release date: March 27, 2026
- Label: Beyond The Groove / AWAL
- For fans of: Joni Mitchell, John Martyn, Loyle Carner, Jordan Rakei