James Bay has said he’s begun work on a new album which he hopes will “showcase his guitar playing”.

The artist has said he is set to return to his more guitar-oriented roots for the follow-up to last year’s ‘Leap’, harking back to his days of playing open mic nights when he was first starting out as a musician.

In an interview with Guitar.com, he said: “With all my heroes, a lot of my favourite work of theirs was recorded in the first or second take. It had that sort of carefree [nature], ‘Let’s just do it. Emote and move on to the next thing.’ I’m trying to do that at the moment.”

He continued: “[Recording an album] piece by piece by piece? I’ve done that a lot. I totally respect it, it really worked for me in the past. But lately, I’ve been standing in front of a microphone with my acoustic guitar, like I used to do on an open-mic night. I’m just singing the song in. No click. Nothing. Just a performance. And it’s fun! It’s sort of freeing to not have to sort of stress over all the minute details.”

Bay also said he is hoping to hone in on his guitar skills more on his next record.  “I do see myself moving towards showcasing more guitar playing in my songs. So maybe [fans’ perceptions] will change as time goes by … but it depends on what the songs dictate.

“The songs are still the most important thing to me, what the melody is doing, what the lyrics are saying, the performance and the delivery of the song. But I will always stand up on stage with a guitar in my hand, so I think, in the studio, I’m gonna give myself a little bit more to do with the guitar.”

In a four-star review of ‘Leap’, NME said: “It’s a bold, self-assured collection of songs about satisfaction. Bay has never sounded so sure of himself.”