Even before his music, Jamie King should write about his life and his semi-perennial vagrant condition. Hailing from Durban, South Africa, Jamie King has been travelling through the continents, even living in Oslo and eventually resettling in London, hoping in a decent chance to become a professional musician. Actually, the first lines of his ep opener (“These Are The Days”) are quite significant: “Now I got my first apartment, never know if I’ll make that rent”. If things go the way he hopes, he should be able to buy the apartment, not just to pay the rent.

In order to make sure that everything goes as planned, King has tried to squeeze all his musical talents and inspirations into six tracks, varying in style and genre. So, you’ve got a little bit of everything in Gifted: the Ben-Harperish bluesy one (“Gifted”), the haunting torch-song (“Cry No More”, vaguely reminding of Thomas Lang – this is a note for true Rainsounders) and the daunting and cheeky sing-along (“These Are The Days”, which is a clever-sounding track, if only you don’t feel like renaming it “These Are The Backstreet Boys”). The voice is good and so is the face, the guy’s gifted and smart enough as to pick up cool sounds without being too artificially hip: take “Not The End”, probably the best-tailored of the six-tracks, in which the guitar gently meets the piano on a synth-driven texture.

If he doesn’t want to go for the too easy (and predictable) tune here and there (“Feeling Love” counts as an example, hip-hop insert included), if he doesn’t try to sound streetwise at all costs and if he can manage not to write such lines as “And I still love you/And I hope you feel the same, And I still want you, in every kind of way”), Jamie King will sure have something to quench his thirst for glory with. And people will have quite a few tunes to hum even before they press Play for the second time.