JAYE JAYLE, Of The Wand & The Moon
Under the moniker of Jaye Jayle, Louisville guitarist/vocalist Evan Patterson has spent over a decade exploring the more abstract realms of the American singer-songwriter process. The name—a reference to a bluebird locked in a cage as a metaphor for being tethered to the blues’ pentatonic guitar style and forlorn subject matter—underscores Patterson’s esoteric relationship to browbeaten themes and old musical traditions. The three previous Jaye Jayle albums—House Cricks and Other Excuses to Get Out (2016), No Trail and Other Unholy Paths (2018) and Prisyn (2020)—found Jaye Jayle continuously experimenting with form and traversing a myriad of sonic trails. On his latest album, Don’t Let Your Love Life Let You Down, Patterson continues to push at the boundaries of American blues and folk traditions while breaking the shackles of defeat and passing into a realm residing between Western stoicism and mystic wonder.
For Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down, Patterson fused the electronic sound-design approach of Prisyn with the full-band dynamic of his earlier work. The songs were rendered in an unconventional manner. Over the course of a year, Patterson tracked guitar lines with his longtime live sound engineer Nick Roeder in a studio built in a converted day-care center. Longtime Jaye Jayle member Todd Cook laid down bass next. Drums followed, with the duties split between Chris Maggio and ongoing collaborator Neal Argabright. Patterson and returning Jaye Jayle member Corey Smith then overdubbed synthesizers. Saxophone (courtesy of Patrick Shiroishi) and vocals (including a guest appearance by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) came last.
It was a gradual and uncertain process, but Patterson was in a much different headspace than he’d been in the past, having come out on the other side of a dissolved marriage and a long period of instability and uncertainty. “I found peace in being accepting of the change. Rather than beating myself up emotionally to go through the divorce. I decided I need to be selfless and guide myself to a place of unconditional understanding and peace.” That openness and vulnerability shaped the music and tapped into something that no previous Jaye Jayle album has attained. “I wanted the songs to feel ‘devastatingly hopeful,’” Patterson says.
Like Leonard Cohen fronting some intermediary step between Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized, Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down, conjures an aura of psychedelic grace and enveloping warmth through its pairing of pensive baritone poetics, druggy studio manipulations, and gospel-infused blues. Abetted by the production and mixing skills of Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe), Jaye Jayle takes the old American singer-songwriter template and imbues it with a kaleidoscope of synesthesia delights culled from a half-century’s worth of fringe music.
This aural grandeur reinforces the life-affirming radiance of Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down. Though Jaye Jayleretains the hypnotic repetition and austere instrumentation of their past, the added layers and saturation of sound intensifies the immersive hallucinatory spirit only previously hinted at in their work. As with all Jaye Jayle records, it’s still best suited for the hours after midnight, but it now holds the promise of dawn.
https://jayejayle.bandcamp.com/album/dont-let-your-love-life-get-you-down
Danish Of The Wand & The Moon is back with a brand new studio album
after 10 years since the last highly acclaimed "The Lone Descent" 2011-
album.
The 10 new songs are a highly atmospheric, melancholic and twilight-
ridden output, that this time clearly shows mainman Kim Larsen’s
inspirations from 60-70's singer/songwriters such as Lee Hazlewood, Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg, as
well as movie soundtracks from the same period. But most importantly - developing the sound from former
album “The Lone Descent” (2011). On the other hand, it still maintains some of the dark neo-folk roots of the
band - but is still a huge step musically into brand new directions as well. The album also includes guest
performances by King Dude, legendary Danish singer/author/artist Martin Hall (who also wrote the liner notes
for the album), as well as several other household names on the Danish scene such as Uffe Lorenzen (Baby
Woodrose), Bo Rande (Blue Foundation) and Sarah Hepburn (Kloster a.o.).
Of The Wand & The Moon started as a soloproject by Kim Larsen in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1998 when he was
still a member and composer in doom-metal band Saturnus. The debut album “Nighttime Nightrhymes” was
released in 1999 and was a dark folk/neo-folk album that received quite some attention in both neofolk, goth
and metal scenes. With the second album “Emptiness Emptiness Emptiness” (2001), the sound of Of The Wand
& The Moon had developed much, and is considered a neo-folk/dark folk classic these days. A lot of touring
followed all over Europe, as Larsen had assembled several live-members for his touring band.
In the years to come, Of The Wand & The Moon released the albums “Lucifer” (2003) and “Sonnenheim” (2005)
as well as several EP’s and vinyl singles. Slowly, the band had become one of the top acts in the dark folk/neo
folk scene and played gigs and festivals all over the world.
2011 saw the release of the album “The Lone Descent”, which was a new chapter for the band. Musically, the
songs on the album were a step into a new direction, with a huge, powerful and epic sound and many new
influences. “The Lone Descent” was received extremely well by both critics and followers and was the most
successful album by the act so far and established Of The Wand & The Moon’s position even more. In Larsen’s
native Denmark, the album was praised in several of the biggest daily newspapers. Gigs at festivals such as
Roskilde Festival, Roadburn, Wave Gotik Treffen and even more touring followed in the coming years, as well as
live-albums, EP’s and vinyl singles. Furthermore, Kim Larsen toured and collaborated in this period with artists
such as King Dude, Anna Von Hausswolff, Offermose, as well as recording and releasing with side-projects such
as Les Chasseurs De La Nuit, Vril Jäger and White Chamber.
Now, after being in the works for 3 years, the brand-new studio album “Your Love Can’t Hold This Wreath Of
Sorrow” is finally ready. Produced by Kim Larsen and Mikkel Elzer (Kloster etc) and mixed by Mikkel Elzer as well,
the album consists of 10 new songs and will be released on October 8th 2021 on Heidrunar Myrkrunar/Tesco.
