indesterren Archives - Foghorn News and Media

Jessie explains below how this first full length album is a triumph over childhood hardship –

Since escaping, recovering and healing from some childhood traumas, I’m finally experiencing a life where I’m free to live & not just survive. My whole world has opened up! The sun has finally shone through, I can explore people and places freely and breathe life in! Something I never had the chance to do as a child.

The first 18 years of my life were focused on surviving constant anxiety. It bubbled in my chest and body, it was like I hadn’t a second to take a breath. After escaping this situation, my brain and body shut down for a year like never before. My mental health had never been worse. The physicality of my depression & trauma hit me like a tonne of bricks. My mind and body were completely and rightfully exhausted.

I’ve grown the most, tried the most and felt the most free than ever in my life. I’ve met friends who have shown me levels of kindness and support I’d never experienced before and who help me remember life is worth living. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m younger now, a phoenix, regenerated, a Rising Sun. I’m still eclectic as a creator, but with this album I feel like I’ve really found my sound and one that expresses who I am inside.

There are so many people I couldn’t have made this album without! Artists I’ve collaborated with such as Brandon Macmillan, Jordan Ellery and the extraordinarily talented Dave Hunt. My wonderful sound engineers who do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to these projects: Andrew Beck, Olivia RA, Murray Dilger & Russell Pilling and my Vocal Coach Joanne McMahon.

Jessie-May K is a young Singer, Songwriter, Director, Actor & Artist. Most successful as an internet personality, Jessie has released four singles and a collection of episodic works that accompanied their 5 track EP Zone Out (2020).

Originally trained in Musical Theatre, Jessie transferred to music when they were 16, teaching themselves guitar from YouTube to elevate their musical career, as they had been writing songs with lyrics and melody since they were 5 years old.

Jessie is passionate about social justice and activism, often releasing music about movements that are important to them, raising awareness and sharing donation links in the hopes it will make a difference. Jessie is Neurodivergent and was born with ASD, ADHD, OCD and developed PTSD as a result of their early hardships and extreme childhood trauma. Jessie believes that the world thrives on diversity and that benign individuality is something to be celebrated and not feared.

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Read Tom Eaton’s new Q&A talking about his albums Abendromen and most recent one indesterren!

What inspired you to become a composer and who are your early influences?

I started playing piano in high school around 1987 and got into synthesizers at the same time. Mostly I was listening to the pop music of the time, Peter Gabriel, Eurythmics, Thomas Dolby, but also Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre. Through a friend I was led to Windham Hill…Will Ackerman, Michael Hedges and George Winston, and those more acoustic albums balanced the music coming from the Private Music label that was releasing amazing electronic work. So my piano playing was being influenced by the sequences of electronic music and people like Winston, and my electronic work was being influenced by the ambiance and sparseness of the Windham Hill records, which was similar in use of space to what Patrick O’ Hearn was doing at the time. Probably the deepest and most lasting influences were Tangerine Dream and Tim Story.

Tell us a little about how you write, how do the songs come? What gets you going creatively?

Both of my albums that were released in 2017 came from a huge emotional upheaval and life change I was going through. “Abendromen” was a way to process the deep sadness and loss I was feeling, and “Indesterren” was more about me finding my footing in a new chapter of my life. My music frequently starts at the piano, even if the piano doesn’t play a huge part in the finished material. For much of what I doing these days, the first thing I do is create an ambient electric guitar loop as a textural landscape for the piece and then work the melody over that shifting drone. Once I have the bones of melody, usually drawn from one of the piano improvs I’ve got stashed away on video, I start weaving electric guitars, bass, percussion and synthesizers in and around the melody until things seem to find a sense of cohesion.

Your bio mentions that you’ve been a recording engineer since 1993. Tell us more about that?

I opened my first commercial studio in 1993, catering mostly to the folk and singer-songwriter scene around Boston/Cambridge, MA. For seventeen years I produced albums in that genre before a chance opportunity led me to Will Ackerman’s Imaginary Road studio in Vermont when Will was in search of an engineer. We hit it off and in the last six years, we’ve produced more than fifty albums together for clients from all over the world. We record at Will’s studio in the mountains of Vermont and then I mix and master at my own studio where I am usually working on some of my own music in addition to the Imaginary Road albums.

What is the first record you bought and why?

I was dj-ing friends parties starting in sixth grade, with my own 45 collections, so it must have been some pop hits of the time. Prince, or Men Without Hats or Hall and Oates, maybe. I definitely remember the first three CDs I bought: Tangerine Dream-Tyger, U2-The Joshua Tree, The Police- Every Breath You Take, The Singles.

What current Australian(or Local) acts inspire you? Ditto for international acts?

I’ve done a bunch of work now with Fiona Joy, both on her Signature Synchronicity album and in her capacity as a member of the FLOW group with Will Ackerman, Jeff Oster and Lawrence Blatt. Working with Fiona is a blast…she is fearless and completely committed in the studio. I adore Damon Albarn’s recent work…his “Everyday Robots” album is brilliant. There’s a rock band from the states called House of Heroes that is amazing, their newest album “Colors” is getting a lot of play here these days!

Tell us a little about your music and what a crowd can expect at a live show?

My music sits somewhere between “pretty” new age, full on electronic music and ambient music…with some electric guitars thrown in for good measure. I wander in and out of using rhythm parts…some songs are percussion driven and others float on those beds of swirling electric guitar. When I’ve played live in the past few years it has been solo piano… the albums are too textural for me to pull them off in concert by myself, so sitting at the piano seems like a direct and familiar way to introduce at least part of my voice to an audience.

Favourite artists of all time?

David Sylvian, The Blue Nile, Tim Story, Tangerine Dream, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush, Kate Rusby and Will Ackerman!

Where do you see artist careers heading?

Well, it’s hard to see the financial return side of the business improving anytime soon, but for those that want to be out on the road playing there is still a living to be made. It’s a different music industry model now that the internet allows music to be moved nearly instantly all over the world. I still love making albums that are collections of songs circling around a central theme or feeling, but the world seems to have returned to a more singles-based model, though of course vinyl is coming back to some degree, so there are music listeners who do want to immerse themselves in a longer experience, which is a good thing. I hope that somehow the streaming world comes around to a more artist friendly system, where fans can listen without spending too much money and musicians can get more than fractions of pennies per spin.

What are your future plans for 2017/2018?

I have three albums of my own in the works right now, and the constant cycle of albums that Will and I are working on. So my plans are to sit right here in front of my mixing console and make some music!