Artist of The Week #303 - Jess Kerber
This week's Artist of the Week is US Americana-folk artist Jess Kerber - who has just released her debut album ''From Way Down Here'.
Nashville's Jess Kerber first picked up a guitar at the age of 12, and her precocious drive to experiment with different tunings and picking styles - influenced by kindred spirits like Joni Mitchell and Susan Tedeschi - led to the development of a unique sonic palette and authentic, personal approach to songwriting. On debut album 'From Way Down Here', she crafts a beautiful suite of powerfully emotive songs that reflect on maturity, humility, and the importance of feeling at home. Inspired equally by her upbringing in Louisiana and exposure to contemporary indie-folk as a student at Boston's Berklee College of Music, these ten pieces highlight the dynamism and depth of Kerber's gorgeous voice and thoughtful, humanistic lyrics, as well as the refined intricacy of her guitar playing.
Opener, "Never Again", waltzes at mid-tempo with a placid strum and breathy tenor vocal right up front, blossoming into its chorus above diffuse guitar harmonies and a weeping pedal steel. Evoking the cocooned feeling of a starlit drive through the countryside, it is transportive and earnest, with shimmering production flourishes that subtly illuminate its vibrant core. "Next To You" is equally delicate, but offers a slight tonal shift, guided by understated electronic programming and a hypnotic, fingerpicked pattern. As it patiently builds, her multi-tracked, honeyed vocals rise from a gentle coo to a stirring howl, exhibiting a remarkable confidence and finesse.
While developing many of these compositions at early live performances in and around Boston and Cambridge, Kerber encountered fellow songwriter Will Orchard, who quickly became a partner and collaborator in the genesis of their recording. Orchard's production prowess and multi-instrumental talents helped push Kerber's arrangements to a new level of fullness, while retaining the disarming purity and emotion of the main elements, in a dynamic akin to that of renowned contemporaries Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Nodding to the traditions of Americana, the two artists - along with mixing engineer Charlie Dahlke of The Brazen Youth - have created their own subgenre that is at once intimate and universal, comforting and raw.
She took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Jess, how are you? So your album is out now – how does it feel to have it out there?.
I am good, just hanging out.
I am more excited for this record than I am for myself! I feel so precious about who I was when writing and recording these songs, and I never want to let go of that. I can’t wait to keep playing these songs on tour and in and around my current hometown of Nashville. I’m so grateful to be able to love music.
It is called 'From Way Down Here’ – what is the meaning behind that?
Track number seven on the album is titled “From Way Down Here”, and that song is about taking a big, long walk. It’s about listening to music that I love and adoring my alone time. In my day to day life, when I make time to center myself, I am reminded how freakin' tiny I am and that everything happening around me is special and intentional; and then being able to be so inspired by that. I’m also a very tall person, so I enjoy the far-away reality of maybe not looking down all the time.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories you are willing to share with us?
I recorded this album in an apartment living room in Boston, MA with my partner, Will Orchard. It wasn’t fancy, and the apartment made so many crickety noises (most of which you can hear throughout the tracks a bit). Thinking back, I know that we knew we were recording an album, but I don’t remember explicitly talking about it until the very end. Which is I think a super great thing because that made room for everything to just be so much fun. No stress nor imposter syndrome.
What are the key influences behind the album?
Turning 20 years old and living alone. I was looking back at old voice memos the other day and realized that each song was written about a month apart, sometimes less than that. They were all just sequentially coming out, in a time where I wasn’t socializing a lot. I would go days without seeing a single person, and I honestly loved it. I would cook a meal, write something, go for a walk, write something, make some coffee, write, go to bed.
And as for artistic influences, I didn’t have a ton of sonic references for the album. But at the time, I was listening a lot to Gord Downie, Adrianne Lenker, Dylan Leblanc, Courtney Marie Andrews, and Andy Shauf.
If the album could be a soundtrack to any film – which one and why?
I have literally no idea, but I have been told that the outro of “From Way Down Here” - 'My feet just won’t stop/Keep on going till they’re worn out tough/Everything is tall/From way down here' - Is like the part of a Disney princess movie where the protagonist finally turns a corner and figures out what they are meant to do in life. So maybe something sweet like that.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the album? If so, which one and why?
It’s from Tropical Storm “I am so small but so tall for my age”. This line is about how I always felt and looked older than I actually was. And anything that reminds me of the little kid that I used to be stays with me. She’s still inside of my heart and my head, and I hope that I can continue to always remember what it felt like to be her.
Now the album is out there – what next for you?
I am going on tour later this summer and into the Fall! First stop is a US Northeast tour in late July and then off to Scandinavia at the end of September. Oh, and finishing my next record - just about done with that.
