Kevin Bronson on July 5th, 2011

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Jamie Scott found his songwriting “voice” early – the Londoner was in his teens when he began penning songs intended for other performers, and just 20 when Sony took a shine to his soulful folk music and signed him. But it wasn’t until a demo session with DJ/producer Tommy D did his songs find their voice.

• ||| Stream: “Annie You Save Me”

“The chemistry between us was so special,” Scott remembers of his meeting with Tommy D, who has worked with the likes Jay-Z, Kanye West and Kylie Minogue. “And the results were so different than anything I could have done by myself.”

The collaboration, which would become Graffiti6, yielded the immediately catchy track “Stare Into the Sun” (so catchy, in fact, the Sun newspaper embraced it for an advertising campaign), then the band’s first two U.K. releases: last spring’s “Stone in My Heart” and last fall’s debut album, “Colours.” The full-length soars with breezy psychedelic folk that amplifies Scott’s lovelorn missives, the pacing and layered arrangements turning what could have been a mope-fest into something wide-eyed and hopeful.

And American audiences are just about to get a taste: Graffiti6, recently signed to Capitol Records, just released the “Annie You Save Me” EP in the U.S., with
“Colours” on the way, possibly by the end of the year.

The dynamic of the collaboration recalls another songwriter/producer duo whose music took on another dimension in the creative process, Broken Bells (if not a bit of Gnarls Barkley too).

“If I’d gone into the studio and said, ‘I want you to produce my album,’ it would have sounded like a singer-songwriter record, which might have been fine,” Scott says, name-checking the likes of Damian Rice and Ray LaMontagne, well-produced songwriters he admires. “But having the producer involved in the writing process [instills] his feel and sound on the record. It comes as much about the sound as anything. And as writer, I feel really lucky, because I can sit down and not worry about boundaries.”

Graffiti6’s “psychedelic Northern soul,” as the pair terms it, elevates Scott’s songs into dance-pop territory, but in his formidable solo acoustic outings the songwriter sees another side of his own material. “The production does influence my voice,” he says. “When I perform ‘Fire’ live, it sounds like a folk song. But on record it sounds like something out of Motown.”

Graffiti6’s performance on Thursday at the Also I Like to Rock series at the Hammer Museum will be a full-band affair, kicking off a modest West Coast tour. Scott could become a fixture in southern California, though – he recently relocated to L.A. with an eye on co-writing with other artists. “I enjoy that a lot, and because of time I’ve actually had to say no quite a bit,” he says. “It’s a wicked situation to be in.”

||| Live: Graffiti6 headlines the opening night Thursday of the Also I Like to Rock series at the Hammer Museum. The free shows kick off at 7 p.m. in the museum’s courtyard. Eastern Conference Champions open.

||| Also: Visit Graffiti6’s website to get a free download of “Annie You Save Me” (Dr. Rosen remix)

Photo by Marina Chavez