Singer-songwriter Paula Jasmine James grew up in Gdańsk in Poland. She was awarded a scholarship to study music at the age of eight, and has been singing and playing flute and piano for as long as she can remember. She later studied at the Jazz Academy in Katowice and trained as a music teacher at Bath Spa University – where she grew fond of the creative environment and decided to stay on and pursue songwriting. Bath in UK has been her home since 2006;

PAULA SAYS: I was always a performer at heart and had always written songs but it wasn’t until my arrival at Bath Spa, with its recording studios and amazing teachers, that I was able to focus purely on composition. All About Eve’s Julianne Regan became my mentor and her expertise and support were truly invaluable. She was one of the very first to hear Haunted House and her conviction that what I was doing was worthwhile meant the world to me. I’ll be forever grateful for her dedication.

Paula uses the piano as her main compositional tool. She surrounds herself with creative minds and chooses her collaborators based not just on the way they sound, but also her sense of them as people – kindness and compassion are the most important factors in her creative process. Jan Freicher, who lives in Switzerland, is Paula’s long-term collaborator.

PAULA SAYS: Jan and I have an incredible musical connection and understanding – it’s hard to explain it, but when we work together it’s very apparent. It’s like a marriage, but better – because we don’t have to live together! I call him my twin brother. Haunted House is our first full album together.

Paula believes that our place on the planet will be lost if we lose our connection with our raw emotions – that only by working through our fears can we move forward and become better people. Her songs are all about human anxiety and insecurity – and how we deal with the ghosts in our lives.

PAULA SAYS: The album is jazz with a big pop influence, and there are acoustic solos in almost every song.

It’s important to me that the work is an honest, authentic fusion of the music I live for as an artist and performer – hence my distinctive synthesis of jazz, pop and gospel. Where the lyrics end, the solo instruments are able to continue my thoughts in a more mysterious way. I think we all live in a haunted house – or maybe the haunted house lives in all of us…