Jesse Davidson

Granted, it’s not unusual for the music industry to lap up young blood and bestow newcomers with wunderkind status straight off the bat, but as far as this Adelaide youngster is concerned, it’s near impossible not to get at least a little excited about his talent.

Beguiling baritone vocals that belie his youth and a knack for understated lyricism have seen Davidson enjoy an eventful year following the release of his debut EP Ocean in 2014. Included in his impressive list of achievements are collaborations with the likes of Japanese Wallpaper and Luke Million, local appearances at Laneway Festival and Groovin The Moo, and even a jaunt overseas to showcase at The Great Escape festival. Davidson was recently signed to US bookers The Windish Agency (Alt-J, Chvrches, Courtney Barnett) before releasing his second EP Lizard Boy in the same month.

“It feels pretty steady, it doesn’t feel too intense,” he says. “It seems like a fairly normal progression, I guess, rather than some overnight success.”

This gradual ascent into prominence has been accompanied by an ever-maturing approach to his craft; something Davidson believes to be evident in his latest offering. “I feel like [Ocean] was a bit ramshackle,” he admits. “I recorded half the songs myself, whereas Lizard Boy feels a little more proper. I feel like it’s more fleshed out. I went to a nice studio and all, and it just feels a little more consistent. Maybe not completely consistent, but a little more than the first one.”

The studio Davidson refers to is Lightship 95, a 550-tonne ship-turned-studio permanently moored at Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London, where he and the Australian-born producer Jake Miller set to work on the five-track EP. While the nautical setting mightn’t have triggered a last-minute decision to throw in a sea shanty (“It was really cool, but I don’t think it changed the songs or anything,” Davidson says), it does seem a rather fitting birthplace for the lulling, cruisy selection of tracks that made it to the EP.

Overall, however, Davidson says his environment doesn’t have a great deal of influence on his writing process – and writing on the road is ruled out entirely. “I don’t really write when I’m touring, I’m not all that focused,” he says. “I pick up an instrument at home, I demo over it, record it at home and once I’ve got something going I send it to Jake Miller and ask what he thinks. I’ll sit on it for ages, eventually record it and see how it sounds with the full recording and all.”

According to Davidson, the decision to work alongside Miller was an easy one. Lizard Boy isn’t the first coming together of the two, with Miller having worked on the Ocean EP from across the pond. “When I was 17 and did Unearthed High he was trawling the internet and being a nerd generally and that’s how he found my music,” says Davidson. “He ended up being like, ‘Hey man, do you wanna record a song? You should come to Brisbane and we’ll record something.’ That’s when we recorded the song ‘Ocean’.”