Through a combination of saxophone, organ, hammered dulcimer, electronics and vocals, Grenadian–Jamaican–American artist JJJJJerome Ellis creates atmospheric, often improvisatory soundscapes able to disrupt the normal flow of things. Having had a stutter since childhood (the stylising of ‘JJJJJerome’ is a reference to the fact they most frequently stutter their own name), Ellis sometimes found it difficult to express themselves verbally while growing up, though soon found an outlet after discovering the saxophone in seventh grade. The creative practice which developed from that point of origin does not exist in spite of the stutter but in fellowship with it, Ellis developing into a multi-instrumentalist interested in how both stuttering and music can suspend or expand time, working to utilise this fact to further the artistic and thematic potential of their work.
Coming this November via Shelter Press, the new JJJJJerome Ellis album Vesper Sparrow uses this as a framework around which to build something even more ambitious. A space carved out of the hectic every day into which the listener is invited, Ellis using the album as a kind of intermission within ordinary time where we might consider histories both personal and communal, as well as those of the natural world, and thus come to honour and understand ourselves more faithfully. Blackness is central to the record, as is lineage and spirituality, and the result is something which upends the linearity of experience to invite us back into the present.
The lead single and title track embody the spirit of this endeavour, breathing new life into the Gospel mainstay ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’ in a way only Ellis could. Layered and rich yet displaying the precise hand of an artist in control of their vision, the song not only introduces the dynamic between detail and space which marks Vesper Sparrow, but also the sense of reverence and possibility inherent within the style. One which might not be religious in the traditional sense of the hymn upon which it is based, but nevertheless carries a sense of devotion and grace. “Even though my relationship to the divine is very different than when I was a child, the lyrics still console me” they explain. “I collaged this track together over the course of seven years, from recordings made in a Brooklyn apartment (with musicians S T A R R (busby), Haruna Lee, James Harrison Monaco, and Ronald Peet) and at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.”
