Lost In Another World, James Ellis Ford’s singular, emotionally resonant second solo album will be released by Domino on August 14th.  The second single, “The Ever After,” is available today. 

Reflecting on “The Ever After,” James says: “It might seem a little odd to be trying to write dance music from a hospital bed, but I was trying to lift my mood and focus on the positive things in my life. In that moment my mind went to my little 8-year-old boy Frank and the power he has to bring joy into the world and point the way to a better future.” 

Lost In Another World was made from start to finish in just over two weeks in early 2025, while James was on a hospital ward between punishing rounds of chemotherapy, following a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive cancer of the white blood cells.  

During the second round of treatment, James—whose work includes producing the Mercury Music Prize 2026-nominated Help(2) album for War Child, as well as records by Arctic Monkeys, Blur and Depeche Mode, and releasing music as both a solo artist and one half of Simian Mobile Disco—did the only thing that felt natural to him: he wrote, played, sang, recorded and mixed a solo album about the experience.  

Using a laptop containing his virtual studio and a cheap mic, he created musical sketches. After Sereen, his wife, bought him a fold away IKEA bedside table and some synths to put on it, these sketches swiftly turned into songs. Staff at the hospital got used to taking his blood pressure while he was laying down vocal takes. 

“There was no filter. I just sang the first thing that came into my head into the laptop.” It became a form of diary keeping; a way to process what was going on and also a way to cheer himself up, which would account for why some of the album is so surprisingly upbeat and poppy: “It was a pep talk; I was telling myself I was going to be OK. It was one way of dealing with the existential dread I felt. It gave me the ammunition to fight the experience and was a distraction from it.” 

Lost In Another World is never self-pitying. If anything, it comes across as a celebration of love. While some of the songs on the album grapple with a clear and present existential fear of death, the calmness of the cancer ward can be credited for the serenity of the album.  “They are very, very still, you can end up feeling like you’re on a space voyage.” 

But no matter how cosmic or psychedelic the sounds are, the lyrics form a long silvery thread connecting him to a very earthbound and frightening experience: “Now I’m trusting in the process/ But it really fucking hurts/ And I’m not sure this poison/ Isn’t just making it worse.” These songs share the rare unconscious vulnerability of Robert Wyatt or the carefree directness of Paul McCartney, and despite the temptation to do further work on Lost In Another World when he returned home, James essentially left it as it was: “The album is like a photograph.  A time capsule.” 

Lost In Another World shares the experiences from the frontline of illness; fear, love, reassurance, boredom, pain, calm, disbelief, and ultimately hope.  These transmissions from the eye of the storm have informed an album which is truly something special. 

“Overtones,” the first single from the album, is out now; watch the visualizer HERE / stream HERE. Watch “The Ever After” HERE / stream HERE. 

Tracklisting 

1. Overtones 
2. People Just Don’t Know 
3. ‘Til Our Days Are Gone 
4. Here Today 
5. Parallel Dimension 
6. Silver Lining 
7. I Believe In You 
8. This Too Shall Pass 
9. Homesick For Another World 
10. The Ever After 
11. Did You Ever Want To Go To Your Own Funeral? 
12. This Will All Be A Memory Soon