JIM Noir is heading for the Joiners on Tuesday (November 25) following the release of his fourth full length album: Finnish Line.

The record is the Mancunian multi-instrumentalist’s first long-player since 2012’s Jimmy’s show.

Musing over your typical topics of life, death, aliens and the weirdness of his home city Manchester, Jim Noir’s latest album ensures that thematically his oddball sense of fun has remained intact, but this time is accompanied by a sound that embraces a lush palette awash with the swelling sixties flavours of The Beatles, Big Star and The Hollies.

Decamping from his bedroom set-up, an array of influences have been given a fresh lease of life via a smart studio setting for the very first time.

“Alcohol. Life. Death. Aliens; in that order I think,” reveals Jim of the album’s themes which, even by his standards, are particularly off-kilter.

“It’s a roam around what I was thinking at a slightly hard point in my life. I stopped drinking for two months and had a moment of clarity.

"A couple of songs are about Manchester and how weird it is.

"A couple about myself, girls, how I like to think aliens are just laughing at us and the futility of it all, and a couple about mortality and how, when, if, and why anyone should worry about it.”

It may sound like Noir has succumbed to ideas darker by design; yet Finnish Line boasts all the indisputable upbeat pop charisma of Jim Noir, with ignited clarity and even more killer hooks ensuring the album lodges itself in the brain before opener The Ancoats Dream even ends.

Through his ever-expanding collection of vintage synths via a love of all things analogue, the album’s infectious sound of wah guitars and layered harmonies only reinforces the reason that Jim Noir is the go-to guy for advertising big wigs worldwide, and precisely why he’s in turn become a staple in people’s everyday lives – yet always on his own terms.

“I had a break from being Jim Noir for a while; I did a small amount of travelling.

"Didn’t really have much in the brain box going on so I didn’t want to just write another thing where I sound off my head in my bedroom,” he says.

Sounding altogether fuller, finer, and downright dandy, Finnish Line was self-produced and marks a cut above all Noir’s previous records to date.

Laid down midst the ‘bricks and ghosts’ of a mill-based studio within the Manchester area of Ancoats and mixed in Blueprint Studios with engineer Tim Thomas, sometimes all that’s needed is to take some time out and find comfort in your new surroundings.

“I miss absolutely nothing about recording at home.Ten years, 25 flats and 87 wives later, I have finally moved into a ‘xxxxhole’ I can call my own.

"I can actually play my drums which has been a huge impact on the sound with more space to walk about pretending to be Jean Michel Jarre.”

  • Tickets: Tel 023 8178 2021.