“Stitched together like the fragments of a dream.” Liverpool songwriter Tom O’Connell -aka Novelty Island – presents a painstakingly-assembled collage of sounds with his third album, Jigsaw Causeway
Release Date: 3rd October 2025
Label: 9×9 Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Cassette / Digital / Limited edition vinyl box set
“OLDER THAN WHEN I WAS YOUNGER”
Novelty Island is more than just a mere music-making enterprise – it’s a multi-media project, the brainchild of Liverpool songwriter, Tom McConnell and Jigsaw Island is the third full-length album to be released under the Novelty Island banner.
Although perhaps best-known for the Beatles-inspired psychedelia and whimsy that pervades his music, McConnell has, for Jigsaw Causeway, taken the opportunity to expand his horizons to take in a few more ‘spectral’ visions. And, in Tom’s words, these visions include: “…the pastel blues of jigsaw oceans, the warm brass rust of Yorkshire and the sepia tones of fading postcards from a stranger’s holiday.” As Tom explains: “…like many people, I’m a bit older than when I was younger. So, that has informed a darker shift. I’ve been orbiting the music world (from very far away) for a long time now and I won’t pretend it hasn’t been very confusing and very crushing at points – that’s a big influence on the record.”
AN ASSEMBLAGE OF PARTS
Like the jigsaw of its title, Jigsaw Causeway is an assemblage of parts – parts that include remote Welsh cottages, Oxford chapels and Yorkshire mining halls, all stitched together like the fragments of a dream. The result is a dreamlike collage that melds the sounds of Oasis and psychedelic-era Beatles with the more earth-bound inputs of a battered tapedeck, an antique harmonium and a brass band.
In keeping with the multi-media aspect of the Novelty Island project, Jigsaw Causeway isn’t just an album, either. With his first ever gallery exhibition, Tom has given Novelty Island a physical presence. The exhibition features papier mâché props and handmade detritus, with the centrepiece being the album sleeve itself – a painstaking assembly of tens of thousands individually-painted jigsaw pieces that form a reimagined photograph of a train crossing Germany’s Hindenburgdamm causeway. The exhibits will be on display at Liverpool’s Bridewell Studios and Gallery between 4th-10th October.
LO-FI, DREAMY AND SURREAL
It’s the album’s title track that gets Jigsaw Causeway underway and it’s exactly what I was expecting. Lo-fi, dreamy and surreal are all words that apply to describe Tom’s lyrics and vocal delivery whilst, musically, the song occupies that small patch of middle ground between Oasis and The Beatles.
A disembodied voice asks “What year is this?” before a burst of grungy guitar riffage introduces the gritty Northern Nowhere. Although Tom’s a proud Scouser, the slurred vocals and lyrical references to Oldham Street and dismal weather locate the song in the city at the other end of the East Lancs Road. And movement between cities is a recurring theme of Jigsaw Causeway. As Tom explains, “[Travel and, specifically] trains and jigsaws are metaphors for movement and fracture,” and that’s a metaphor that’s explored in Someone Disappearing. Backward tapes, a solid, loping bassline and dreamy, semi-conscious vocals place the song firmly within Beatles territory, an impression that’s further enhanced by a couple of brass band interludes and lyrical references to a ‘deflating railway station.’ Steam engine effects abound and it’s all strangely nostalgic and warming.
CLIMATE ANXIETY
Climate anxiety is another subject that’s made its presence felt on Jigsaw Causeway and Tom expresses his concerns in an oblique way with lines like: “Dear God! Look out! The sky’s falling down” and “The weathermen are changing channels faster than we paddle” in the world-weary (yet warmly enticing) Foam Animals. And the topic of climate doom is continued for I’m Glad It’s Not Sunny. Acoustic guitars and a lazy, driving, drumbeat provide the backing to Tom’s weary, observational vocals whilst, between verses, churning electric guitars provide a startling contrast.
Gentle, alluring and ever-so-slightly baffling, Apollo is dreamy and pastoral in an Itchycoo Park kind of way, before polka-dot synth tones provide the intro to the equally-dreamlike Floating. Tom’s escapist lyrics – “Floating, underwater Gameboy games at the bottom of the ocean” allow the dreams to continue before chiming guitars and resonant bass intervene to pluck the song from the latter reaches of the 21st century and return it to 1967 for an extended psychedelic coda.
RUNAWAY TRAIN
The guitars that introduce the uplifting Rainy sound almost punky before, in a short three-plus minutes, Tom manages to tip a hat to Oasis, Merseybeat, the garage rock of Nuggets and, of course, the psychedelicised John Lennon.
Tom wrote the excellent The Only Train Driver in England as a vehicle that enabled him to list his anxieties for his own future. The song’s driving rhythm – complete with a persistent metallic chime – evokes a train travelling at speed, whilst brash instrumental interludes suggest that the train isn’t entirely under anyone’s control. Tom’s personal issues may seem mundane in comparison, but there’s no lack of drama as he crams his list of anxieties into a rant, whilst the song – and the train – rattle to the end of their respective journeys.
AN ORANGE GOODBYE…
Droning keyboard and a bassline that borders upon funk provide the foundation for An Orange Goodbye, the album’s closing track. Tom’ s lyrics are enigmatic but engaging and the repeated references to “Falling down, down, down” are echoed in music which swirls, as if in a vortex, towards an unguarded plug hole. And, as the musical pool gradually disappears, it seems as if the drums, keyboard, guitars and bass are each, individually, waving their goodbyes.
Watch the official video to Northern Nowhere, a track from the album, below:
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