A reflective album looking back on discovery, where everything felt new and beautiful.
“From Way Down Here” is Louisiana-born, Nashville-based Jess Kerber’s debut album. It is a very engaging and charming set of songs that is, without doubt, worth taking the time to listen to. Kerber exhibits a rare quality of making you feel as though you are sitting, watching, and listening to her, captivated, alone, in the comfort of your living room. Growing up, she was influenced by the likes of Joni Mitchell and Susan Tedeschi. In these songs, that inspiration has shone through empathetically; they have a very delicate and wistful quality to them.
The opener ‘Never Again’ is a confident mid-tempo strumming song that has a breathless quality that Dido demonstrated so well a few years ago. It has a dreamy texture about it that draws you in instantly, the slide guitar certainly adding to that very agreeable, laid-back feel.
The title track explores the difficulties of viewing the grandeur of the world when it is viewed from a minuscule scale. The pedal steel mixes exquisitely in tandem with her vibrato. The influence of her childhood, which she lovingly calls “The way apart from the rest of the world, feeling,” certainly shines through very strongly.
Much credit must also go to Will Orchard’s production and multi-instrument talent. They met during live performances in and around Boston and Cambridge, and Orchard is certainly an important partner and collaborator throughout. This could well be a fledgling partnership very much along the lines of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings; it undoubtedly has that potential.
This feels like an album that could have been produced in the mid-seventies, which is unquestionably no criticism. It is a heady mix of indie and mystic folk with modern themes which have been carefully and thoughtfully produced. A debut that promises so much more in the future. Could an album that can be compared to “Blue” be around the corner?
