Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Jerk reveals brand new album ‘Bloom’.
Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Jerk reveals reveals brand new album ‘Bloom’.
Written in the late spring of 2021, the album's first offering, ‘Il. Sunshower’ demonstrates the boundless virtuosity of the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, playing every instrument on the track (and the album for that matter) completely themselves, minus the programmed drums. The track offers a tantalising glimpse at what Jerk has created across the album and sees the polymath step into an exciting new zone of rawness and musical purity ahead of the album’s unveiling.
Speaking on the single, Jerk went on to say; “This was the first piece I had written in months, it seemed to pour out of my fingers. The melody, harmony, and textures felt so fresh and invigorating. I exported the demo to my phone and took a walk to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to listen. Mid walk, it started pouring rain, but there were hardly any clouds in the sky - a Sunshower. I was soaked head to toe, but it was so beautiful I couldn’t even be upset. It was a renewal - a washing away of the old and embrace of the new.’
Second single ‘Miss Psilo’ was born during a complicated period in Jerk’s life and is the first piece of music Jerk wrote after acknowledging their queer identity, as they describe: “I was on a trip in Upstate New York and participated in a mind-expanding activity. I remember looking in a mirror and hating what I saw, and I didn’t understand why I felt this way. As a result, I fell into a deep depression. After swimming in these feelings for weeks, I acknowledged that I had been lying to myself for my entire life. The first time I sat down at the piano, Miss Psilo poured out of my fingertips.”
That is evident throughout, with an abundance of emotive instrumentation, along with a rawness that cuts through the heart of the track allowing space for the stunning piano solo to effortlessly enter across the mid-section of the song, in preparation for the harmonic saxophone to come in towards the end.
The album's final single, ‘Still Searching’, is an embrace and reclamation of one of Jerk’s earliest influences, the legendary Roy Ayers, and his piece ‘Searchin’. Gleaming with uplifting vibrations, 'Still Searching' is Jerk at their finest with melodic saxophone throughout, accompanying the abundance of instrumental layers and textures within the three and half minute striking and upbeat jazz number.
The album itself follows a period of change, understanding and coming of age for Jerk, which clearly transcends within the music, and sits fittingly within the album's title - Bloom. The music from beginning to end is raw in form and profoundly personal, as Jerk articulates:
“When a flower blooms, it’s a sign that everything went right - the soil was fertile, the sun and water met its needs, and the plant was nourished. Bloom is a collection of music I wrote when I was embracing my queer identity and coming out of the closet. Coming out wasn’t something I wanted at the time, but rather something I needed. In the same way, I didn’t intentionally write this music, it just seemed to pour out of my fingertips. This album is my bloom - proof that owning and embracing my truth was necessary to be nourished.
Bloom is very raw and very personal. The songs captured real-life moments of beauty, euphoria, fear, and awkwardness. When I decided to make this album, I wanted to capture that rawness. The drums are programmed. Everything else is a live instrument - you can hear my mistakes, my breathing, the piano bench squeaking, and the warm and hissy sound of signal pouring through vintage instruments, microphones, and preamps.”