The Scotsman Sessions #158: Jared Celosse

Welcome to The Scotsman Sessions. With performing arts activity curtailed for the foreseeable future, we are commissioning a series of short video performances from artists all around the country and releasing them on scotsman.com, with introductions from our critics. Here, from his home in Glasgow, Jared Celosse sings and plays all the guitar parts in a multi-layered version of his track, Breaking Me Down

Jared Celosse is the classic bedroom musician, so it’s appropriate that his Scotsman Sessions performance of the entrancing Breaking Me Down was at least partly recorded in the bedroom of his Glasgow home, where he layered on guitar parts to accompany the central vocal performance filmed, with bonus Swiss cheese plant, in his living room.

“I’ve always been comfortable producing music at home,” he says. “This is one of the first songs I wrote when I was starting out as a songwriter in high school, when music-making was something that took place entirely in my bedroom.”

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Celosse was born in London but spent his teenage years in the Czech Republic, where his parents worked as teachers, before moving to Glasgow six years ago to attend university.

In 2019, he won the inaugural Stewart Cruickshank Bursary, a prize named in honour of the late Radio Scotland producer and new music champion, offering mentorship, songwriting development and the opportunity for Celosse to record three songs in the prestigious Chem19 studio.

Celosse describes the bursary as “a huge blessing in my life. It offered me a step up in the industry, a chance to work with some incredible people and helped open the door to a live session on Radio Scotland with Vic Galloway back in March.”

Since March, Celosse has been trying to stay creative within the confines of home and is working on a new EP. “The first lockdown wasn’t too hard, I have always been a bit of a homebody,” he says. “But this second lockdown has been harder on my mental health. The shorter days and colder temperatures have made going out less attractive. I think this might be the first Christmas I don’t fly home to see my parents in Prague, but it’s worth it for their and others’ safety.

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