There was a rumor floating around that Jar-E had dumped all of his possessions in the French Broad, skipped out of his gig commitments, and gotten a title loan on the car he left idling in the parking lot as he hopped the number 6 bus to the airport just in time to make the first leg of a plane trip to Tahiti. The way I heard it, he was mumbling something about “pulling a Gauguin” before the transit driver ran the bus into the glass doors of the Shear Shack down in Skyland. The shock must have been such that he remembered how Paul Gauguin was eventually run off the island after giving syphilis to all the teenage girls. Or maybe it wasn’t the prospect of contracting the British Disease that shocked young Jar-E into abandoning this libidinous quest so much as the clarity of seeing that desire, too, can be a social disease.
So instead of jetting half-way around the world, Jar-E hoofed it back up to Echo Mountain recordings to bring us his new release, “Blood of the Summer,” which comes out tomorrow (or today, depending on when you are reading this. For all I know, it came out last month and you Googled “Paul Gauguin” and wound up here. Lucky you!) What resulted is an exploration of the landscape of desire, its peaks and vales and the boundaries it pushes us to cross without being able to traverse them itself.
Take for instance the opening track, where Jar-E plans his fun knowing that things could get ugly if he doesn’t find somewhere to stash his thunderstick. Having successfully done so, he has a better time than poor Billy Joe, whose mother warned him not to take his guns to town, son. Rarely, however, do we have such prudence and more often than not a small moment of pleasure is followed by hours of wondering what might be, such as in “Mary Mary Mary.” Or what is worse: knowing what is happening, as in “Cuckold.”
It’s confusing, frustrating, and sometimes disappointing, this attempt to be honest with ourselves about who and what we really are. A little “Witch Doctor” hoodoo couldn’t hurt, and even if it doesn’t help in the end the process has to be worth something, right? At least we get to articulate the questions that are possessing us, and that plus some St. John the Conqueror root might give us some relief. Maybe. Maybe not.
It could be that we are screwed, lashed to our oars and doomed to continually quest for the Golden Fleece that will finally satisfy the longing of “A Lover’s Heart.” It may not a pretty picture to look at, but it’s more honest to point out that the heart is but one of the muscles we are born with. A damn important muscle, to be sure, but only one.
In the right hands, however, that muscle can transform us if we trust the person holding it. And if we are so inclined. Desire might lead us toward rocky shoals, but we’d never go anywhere without it. The alternative is to be trapped in a fantasy of speculation without hope of deliverance. This geography, devoid of passion, is reliably bleak and in the end more frightening than being consumed by desire.
But, hey, what happened to talking about that snappy new Jar-E album? You remember the Jar-E guy right? Horns and latin beats? Grooves and a few samples here and there? Yeah, that’s the guy we are talking about, right?
Um, yes it is, but as with his previous two outings, Jar-E’s sound has progressed. There are not, so far as I can detect, any samples this time around. There are, of course, horns and keyboard played with sometimes subtle and sometimes soaring effect. There’s also pedal steel and / or violin when a note needs a longer bow or twang than more commonly heard instruments can provide. Woven though is Jar-E’s own voice which plays more like a saxophone reed than an organ pipe in complement to the other players.
If you have listened to and enjoyed previous records by Jar-E, you will be very happy with where he takes you with this record. If you haven’t listened before, this is a good time to start. It’s entirely possible that the first 600 words of this review may have given you no clue whatsoever as to what is going on with the album. What they should tell you is that there is a lot with which to get engaged. It’s easy to get started with this record, but you will find it hard to put down.
Find out more about Jar-E and how to buy the new record here.
i thought jar-e was a star wars character.
but that’s jar jar.
i was wrong.