JJerome 87 ‘The Canyon’ review: alt-J man creates a cinematic world of his own
On his debut solo album, alt-J's Joe Newman shines a unique lens on parenthood and creates a vivid new sound of his own.
alt-J frontman Joe Newman (under the new stage name JJerome87) describes his debut solo album The Canyon as “alt-J (esque) songs but with a Californian, Motown, blues and Gospel energy”. Moving to California and embracing such sounds was only part of what inspired this ambitious, cinematic and immersive record, because nothing has changed him more than the birth of his daughter Myola. Does anything change a person more than becoming a parent?
The Canyon is a living, breathing world of its own. Working with producer Carlos De La Garza, a talented ensemble of session musicians and a trio of backing vocalists – Princess Fortier, Alisha Roney & Felice LaZae – allows Newman to create an instrumental backdrop dripping with the sultry Californian sun. Close your eyes on ‘Walkaway Music’, for example, and you’re on set in a spaghetti western from Hollywood’s golden age.
Lyrically, there’s scope for variation, from embodying a cult leader on the opening track ‘Mr. Alligator’, where Newman pertinently explains: “I use the bible like a scalpel / I make incisions into inactive minds / but I’m not to be trusted,” to the lead single Brush Me Like a Horse, the tale of a man metamorphosising into a horse, to a level of personal introspection he’s seldom afforded himself in the past. That’s where Myola comes in, as Newman earnestly and beautifully dedicates a ballad to her and his partner on the record’s emotional epicentre ‘Two Hearts’, chronicling pregnancy and infancy in an ode to the two most important people in his life.
A lot has changed for JJerome87 – even his stage name. Though he embraces this on an album full of life, there’s a pang of nostalgia at the end. “I keep fighting the desire to return to who we were two hours ago,” he admits on ‘Pennine’. “Slow motion heartache compliments that landscape / On the train North to Leeds,” to where alt-J and all of this began. This is an album of change, adaptation and love, but it ends with bittersweet contemplation. Things will never quite be how they once were. Perhaps that’s okay.