Sometimes hype can be more of a curse than a blessing. It's a house of cards that can so easily tumble if music fans have inflated expectations. So does man of the moment Jamie Woon feel squeezed to live up to the hyperbole lavished on him by frothy-mouthed hacks who toe the line? "I finished the album in December and the ideal situation would have been if it could come out on the back of not too much hype," he concedes.
But it wasn't to be for the 27-year-old Londoner who lays out sparse soul topped with delicate falsetto vocals. He was anointed as "one to watch", coming fourth in the BBC's slightly silly Sound of 2011 poll in January. "Sometimes you get put into boxes you weren't really thinking about," says Woon - adding, sagely: "The danger of hype is that people feel things are being shoved down their throat."
But this thoroughly likeable lad is not someone you'd imagine would ever do much shoving. In measured, softly spoken tones, he patiently explains his background down the phone line from his hotel room in New York. "I've loved singing ever since I was a kid. I was into Michael Jackson before I was even really into music. When I was at primary school that was the only music people listened to. He was omnipresent. I took up guitar when I was 15, was into Britpop."
Woon's adoring Scottish folk musician mother Mae McKenna encouraged him. "Mum made an album in Nashville – I went along and was really excited about that and applied to music college from there. I didn't really think about doing anything else after that."
It was no ordinary music college though – it was the Brit School, alma mater of Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis. "It was a fun place to go. It sounds like a really calculated place maybe. But," he jokes, "it's actually more like a bumbly sixth form!" What about annoying jazz hands? "There were jazz hands there," he laughs, "but that was the musical theatre course. We on the music course were very much outside in the foyer just playing instruments."
It took a few more years to get to the point of releasing his debut album. There was an EP in 2007, and the breakthrough track Night Air was released last year. "I'm a perfectionist, I like to take a long time over things, to sweat over it. I fall in and out of love with tracks." That album – Mirrorwriting – hits the streets later this month. Intriguingly, the LP features additional production from dubstep innovator Burial, aka south Londoner William Bevan.
Some listeners have sketched in lines that link Jamie Woon's output with that of James Blake and the xx. Certainly there's that same sense of space in Woon's music, but obviously someone at Polydor Records has taken a punt on it being very commercial too. "I don't see what I do as pop though," points out Woon. "I was playing soul music, making acoustic songs. But I think that by putting them into the computer it became more R&B. Very much groove-based soul music." The Guardian praised Woon's single Lady Luck as: "Spectral, minimalist, machine-tooled neo-soul that unfolds effortlessly."
He's clearly at home in the studio, adding: "I've done a couple of remixes. Production and remixing is something I'd like to do more."
What about being on stage? Did he enjoy his stint at that Texas new talent knees-up, SXSW? "Absolutely. I've always wanted to come out and play. It's been really good fun. We did eight shows in five days. It's been like boot camp. I also supported Mount Kimbie - which is why I'm in Manhattan."
Festival appearances in Austria and Germany, as well as headline shows in Britain, are on the agenda this summer. Woon also plans to pen some new material "on weekdays".
Woon is a self-effacing chap and that's a pleasant trait in a music industry chocka with self-aggrandising chumps. "I've been piling on the pounds on the road," he chuckles, when I ask him about the dubious delights of southern US scran. "Occupational hazard!"
