(3/6/5) 009: Jackie West - End of the World
The comparisons that led to me opening an email about the forthcoming album from Jackie West and the kind of reference points I'll always spend the time to investigate: Karen Dalton, Sibylle Baier, Vashti Bunyan, Jessica Pratt. That and the fact that the album was arriving courtesy of the ever-excellent Ruination Records, a NYC label that has released some favourites of ours over the past few years, from the likes of Adeline Hotel, Kitba, Colin Miller, Minor Moon and loads more (highly recommend checking out everything they've ever released via Bandcamp).
As for West, she's a Boston-born, St.-Louis-raised songwriter who emerged in Brooklyn experimental folk circles in the late 2010s. Of the three tracks that have thus far been released from the Close To Mystery LP (released May 10th), her latest collection strays into that experimental world but also allows things to just simmer softly, patiently allowing certain songs to unwind at their own pace.
'End Of The World' is such a moment, the musical backing burrowed away somewhere in the shadows as her striking voice hangs in the air, front and centre, shifting enticing in the occasional beam of sunlight.
Making good on those aforementioned musical comparisons, there's a bewitching edge to West's work which carries it away from standard folk-fare and into slightly more unearthly, idiosyncratic territories – and the whole thing is all the more beautiful for it.
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