Jake Bugg

There are lightning bolt moments in the career of every artist when their fame is thrown into sharp relief. For 19-year-old Jake Bugg it happened in the summer of 2013 before 17,000 people at the Splendour festival in his home town of Nottingham. Two years earlier, the unknown and unsigned Bugg had been the opening act there on the smallest stage. Now he returned as victorious local hero and main headliner. Barely a year after his debut, in November 2013 he returns with its bar-raising follow-up, 'Shangri La.' The album shares a title with the Malibu studio where it was made, once the 70s haven of Bob Dylan and The Band, now the creative hub of legendary producer Rick Rubin, the recording Titan whose jawdropping c.v. spans from Def Jam and Johnny Cash to Adele and Kanye West. Rubin first worked with Bugg earlier in the year on a re-recording of haunting debut album ballad Broken. Asked to compare 'Shangri La' with its predecessor, Bugg concludes: "My first album felt like a list of songs, whereas this one feels like a whole entity with something to say. Or if my first album was the colour of grey reality, this one's the colour of the sun." Listening to his second album you dare to wonder where a talent like Jake Bugg could find themselves in ten years' time.