Jerry Leger goes off-piste again with an interesting new psychedelic offering.
Jerry Leger is a 39-year-old Toronto-born singer-songwriter who has to date had a 20-year recording career, during which he has released 13 albums, 7 solo, 3 under the name Jerry Leger and the Situation, and 3 side-projects, The Del Fi’s (2) and the Bop Fi’s. Nothing if not productive…. In 2013 and after several years of releasing albums independently he met Michael Timmins of The Cowboy Junkies who produced a number of his albums for release on Latent Recording, the Junkies’ own label. He is also highly regarded by the likes of Ron Sexsmith and Doug Paisley who have appeared with him on record.
And he is a towering songwriter, with influences that cover pretty much the whole of rock, country and pop music (think John Lennon, Bob Dylan -who isn’t influenced by him?, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Gene Clark). He is a truly confessional writer, so many of his songs are enigmatic, dark and not always easy listening, but they are wrapped in some lovely melodies and are always relatable musically. He has a distinctive, quite high-pitched voice. As one of his major influences is Tom Waits, he is very pleased not to be compared with him because his voice is so different. He is well-known and highly regarded at Americana UK Towers – his last solo album was rated 9/10 by an esteemed colleague.
His side projects have been more experimental than his solo work, the Del Fi’s being a rock’n’roll band with a focus on the musical styles of the 60s and 70s – he describes them as “an interesting change of pace personally” as he is not under pressure to promote their albums and can enjoy himself with the songs and the arrangements. The Bob Fi’s are a little more experimental, focussing on the spoken word, usually poetry written by Leger.
And his latest side project, The Psych Fi’s, takes experimentation a little further on their album “Can Con“, a small selection of songs written by Leger with dark dreamlike overtones, that are serviced by his regular, and rather talented, band The Situation (Don Mock on bass and guitars, Kyle Sullivan on drums, Alan Zemaitis on pianos and organ, plus acoustic guitar, Aaron Goldstein on electric guitar, and Leger himself on guitars) and augmented by a ‘revolving door’ of more than a dozen guests, the most distinctive on the album being Kate Boothman, Angie Hilts and Katie Methot on background vocals who stand out on nearly every track, Ken Yoshioka on harmonica on a couple of tracks, and Michael Eckert on steel guitar. The clue to the music is in the band’s given name. Each song is drenched in swirling amped-up, fuzzy, psychedelic guitar stylings and long organ solos, which combine to produce a hypnotic wall of sound.
This ‘revolving door ‘ of musicians had very little sight of the songs or the music prior to entering the ‘haunted Toronto studio’ where it was recorded live. Leger just invited them in and let them do their thing, and very interesting things they are.
The album kicks off with the double header ‘Alone in a Room of Mirrors/James Cagney’, a thirteen minute trip down the psychedelic pathways of the 60s, where the guitars (and there are several of them) are soaked in reverb, fuzzed up and spat out around Leger’s strange lyrics, producing a series of little guitar instrumental vignettes. Underpinning the track, which has a kind of Western movie soundtrack vibe to it, is a marvellous bass line (presumably by Mock), a piano tinkles away in the background and the track is led to its conclusion when the background organ suddenly breaks out into a spontaneous solo, then Leger repeats an oft-repeated line “I’m a lonely boy, a lonely boy, a lonely boy” . Lyrically, as with most of the tracks, there is a lot of repetition of the lyrics creating a rather hypnotic effect. ‘Odds and Evens‘, seven-plus minutes of more zingy guitars, is slower than the opener and is dominated by a glorious harmonica solo from Yoshioka, and a lovely electric guitar solo. Like the first track, it has a guitar motif that runs through the song.
‘Summer’s Right Around the Corner’ is nine minutes plus and has the usual interplay between the guitars and an organ and other keys shimmering in the background, with an oft-repeated chorus of the title around some fascinating lyrics harking back to the old days “Pulled the shades and tuned up the radio / “Little Buddy” by ol’ Hank Snow / Static crackling around the brain / Life’s a party down the sugarcane” Background vocalists include Don Stephenson, one time member of Moby Grape who must have felt in a time warp. There’s some nice steel, and another wonderful bass line.
Some smart drumming kicks off ‘You Know that I Love you, I Do’ (nearly seven minutes) which has a more or less constant repetition of the title line, but it works hypnotically with some great call and response vocals from the aforementioned girls, which power the track forcefully towards a high octane finish. A very cool track.
And the album ends with a beautiful slow dream-like 7-minute country ballad, ‘Song for Vultures’, which is a bit of an outlier as the psychedelic guitars , whilst there, are very much a background feature. The track has outstanding wordless backing vocals, harmonica again and lovely short guitar, steel and keyboard solos. The organ solo outro is beautiful and matches the tone of the closing lines of the song “So give some hope to the vultures / Strong you needn’t be / To write a goodbye song / You only sing in your dreams”.
It’s an album to soak up with some late-night bevies and it’s all the more remarkable because in effect it’s like a spaced-out jam session, and you don’t get many of them in Americana music. Jerry Leger is nothing if not adventurous and is never less than extremely interesting. Well worth a listen.
