Jess Kerber has a way of tricking you into thinking she’s one thing, before you realise she’s really far more than the sum of her parts. She picked up her first guitar in Nashville at the age of 12, yet she also studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. While her parents are both classically trained musicians, exposing her to the classics like Debussy, yet they also rooted her in the Allman Brothers, even encouraging her to skip school to attend a music festival, making From Way Down Here an album that doesn’t exactly follow the paths you might expect.
The opening notes of ‘Feeling the Fall’ suggest this is going to be just another singer/songwriter collection, yet little touches begin lead to the notion that everything isn’t exactly what it seems. A simple piano and guitar, along with a pure country opening set you up for one thing, but brief guitar sonics force reconsideration. Swells of fuzz suggest this isn’t the Nashville Willie Nelson left for the wilds of Texas.
‘Never Again’ reveals a song combining ambient guitar with a weeping pedal steel, while her lyrics highlight a woman who is headed down a path all her own. “The kind of place/ That’d you feel safe/ I miss it sometimes/ But never for long/ I’ll know it forever/ But never again.” Within those lines we find she has given up on living in one world simply because it’s not an area where growth is part of the equation. She lives in a different place where she is able to look back and know her life has changed forever.
While her guitar is at the forefront of ‘I Wonder If I’ll Forget This’, deep in the background synths add a different edge to the song. Imbued with a gentle sadness she sings, “All of my advice/ I only take when it hurts to cry/ But mostly it just feels like/ Nothing’s there.” Sometimes one can’t begin to express the feelings at the heart of the pain.
At the opposite end of the spectrum Kerber’s ‘Carry My Home’ feels like a prime piece of Joni Mitchell as she wanders from town to town singing her songs. The slight piano and plucked guitar help reveal the heart of a true traveler as she offers, “God it feels good to know / That I always carry my home.” The path she’s on is one of her own making and what she needs travels with her always.
From the guitars that never do the expected to her voice which blends homes from New Orleans to Boston, Jess Kerber finds ways to create the kind of simple magic that makes From Way Down Here resonate with clarity and charm.