Premiere: Marie Dahlstrom Teams Up With James Vickery For Timeless Soul

Danish-born, London-based singer Marie Dahlstrom will this week release her debut album Like Sand (Friday, May 22) and today she’s revealing the final pre-drop taster with the James Vickery-assisted “I Don’t Wanna Wake Up”. 

Together, the pair channel all of their classic soul influences into something timeless — think back to all those classic soul duets from the ’60s and ’70s and you’re in the right ball park. Imbued with a slow and hazy jazz groove, the less-is-more instrumentation gently guides their fluttering vocals to the finish line.

Speaking on the collaboration, Marie said: “I’ve been a fan of James’ voice for a while. James and I had a session at mine, and this song just came about so naturally, we just started humming melodies over the chord progression and not long into the session we had the line ‘I don’t wanna wake up’. I produced this song myself and I remember leaving the production for a while before actually committing to finishing it and that’s when I got my friend Liam Joseph to jump on some bass and Qmillion to get involved for the mixing.”

James went on to add: “I wrote this song on the first day of working with and meeting Marie, I’ve been a fan of her vocal for a minute now and we wanted a write a song that allowed us to showcase vocal runs and freedom. It’s rare I get to experiment so much with another artist on that level so it is truly a blessing, the song is about not wanting to wake up at all if you’re not gonna be there to experience it with me, infatuation at it’s finest.”