JORDAN BUDD
Special to The Leader
Jacob King opens the door to his latest album with a chasm of sounds. Light acoustic strums float around the head while a contrasting pitch-altered scream sounds like wind blown in from another dimension.
It’s called “The Universe.” The intro song tells the story of the universe’s creation, but in this fictional plot snakes who symbolize both wisdom and original evil eventually take over.
King, a senior student, and popular artist on campus released his album, “Healers”, on May 5.
King’s past releases include his 2020 output “Wired”, a well-distorted lo-fi garage rock album rich with psychedelia and his 2022 release “Hiders,” a fantastic lyric-driven folk album that experiments with noise.
“Healers” feels like a capstone project, blending elements of “Wired” and “Hiders.” It includes both King’s heavier side of raucous distortion and his softer side of subtle acoustics.
This is all on display in the single “The Universe.”
Cascio Fonseca, the lead singer of the Fredonia band Beach Tower and a good friend of King said, “From the first screams of the track, it catches you off guard, but brings you in at the same time, and Jake’s dulcet vocal tones and poetic lyricism that follows makes it an excellent lead single.”
Fonseca added,“Jake is very ‘do it himself’ with his music, while Beach Tower’s music so far has been much more collaborative and ‘in-studio’ creation.”
King refers to the eccentricities of “Healers” and a feeling of being misplaced by marketing the upcoming album with the Bandcamp catchline “Freak sounds from nowhere.”
Seeing that his artistic process doesn’t always reflect how his musical friends create, King isn’t romanticizing when he says his style of music-making sometimes causes him to feel like an outsider.
Expanding on the notion of “nowhere,” he likens this to “making something from nothing,” or “coming up with something in a place where it doesn’t make sense to and then really asserting that it exists.”
These “freak sounds” were realized similarly to King’s other releases, by utilizing a 4-track cassette recorder in a specific “nowhere,” the basement of his parent’s house. “Healers” was recorded in the summer of 2022 in a cramped stairwell.
Although the project as a whole isn’t specifically tied to his prior releases, one song, “Sway To and Fro,” borrows a melody and lyrics from his 2022 song “Hider (Hi Ho).”
“The way it sits on guitar, the way you play it is very similar to “Hiders” or a bunch of songs from that time,” King said.
He describes the Neil Young-inspired tune as the unofficial title track for the release, an optimistic shade of the depressive ideas explored on “Hiders.”
His aim for this one was different from previous recordings; King wanted to create positive music. This is most evident in the acoustic warmth and upbeat melody of “Sunshine & Flowers,” one that features the only other contributing musician on “Healers.” On the track, King’s significant other, Carissa Rice, sings alongside him.
King’s idea of fun summer songs is at its most deranged on “A Philomel” a three-section expression that is subject to unexpected blasts of noise within its seven-minute run time.
King said, “The first part of the song is like you’re facing something traumatic and terrible,” while the middle transitory section represents a similarly unhealthy environment, but “you come out of it with more control and power by using the thing that hurt you,” for your betterment.
Starting and finishing the recording in a day, “A Philomel” was the last song tracked for the album. King’s layers upon layers of noise are the product of a tight deadline, his move-out date for the upcoming Fall 2022 semester.
The last portion of King’s summer was spent sweating his anger out in the basement. He crammed frenzied screeches, cacophonous drumming, honkin’ harmonica, and tweedling recorder under the stairs, before surfacing to begin his final year at Fredonia.
The recorder is new to King’s recorded music. He said the fast, incoherent playing reminded him of the bird chirps you’d hear in a forest.
While thinking of the location of these songs, he thinks of the wilderness. His appreciation for nature is a popular aspect of folk music that isn’t removed from “Healers”.
He mentions that it could have just as easily been an all-electric album similar to “Wired,” but it was important to him that the element of folk music remained.
Even though many of the songs are more laidback, King always imagined “Healers” resonating with heavier music circles.
This is exemplified in his choice of producer: Weasel Walter, an American composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist known for dissonant, aggressive music within hardcore, free jazz, noise, and no-wave, among many other styles.
Some of King’s methods for healing include sipping coffee and tea. These beverages are mentioned in the lead-single “The Universe,” and one-off release, “Organic Tea” while an adorable steaming mug appears on the “Healers” cover.
King also said how the act of making things, whether that be music, writing, artwork, or a host of other self-defining activities, is also a healing method.
King said “[I] don’t know if it’s a message but something I hope people get out of it is that the things you write down, the things you say, that includes the music you make or the music you pass on… One day, that’s what you are.”
King describes the album’s construction, a many-month long process that started last summer and finished recently, as healing. He drew the four emblematic symbols, took pictures of an old frame he had, and then made it pop with digital color.
The four drawings themselves are visual representations in his mind of certain scenes from the songs. The snake image is based on “The Universe,” while the donkey drawing symbolizes “The Golden Ass,” a song titled after the ancient Roman novel of the same name. King said his songwriting, especially on “The Golden Ass” and “Philomel,” stemmed from his studies in English professor Dr. Shannon McRae’s Greek and Roman Literature class.
The bottom two aren’t as serious. They include a human character with a bigfoot and a mysterious triangle pattern that resembles a logo for TDK, an electronic’s company that he used cassettes from.
King said, “Good to have a big foot.”
The TDK-like symbol also appears within his recently formed publication and zine, The New Disposable/A Magazine for Children from Nowhere. The first issue premiered at the English department’s Fred Lit Fest held on April 29.
King feels fulfilled getting these projects out ahead of his upcoming graduation.
Folk music meant for heavy rock communities, chaotic noise inspired by orderly classroom discussions, a world of music built underneath a staircase, and now a magazine for children from nowhere, King’s work is as creative and enigmatic as ever as he says farewell to his Fredonia years.
We can only hope that this streak continues beyond his time at Fredonia. Cheers to hopefully many more than four years of Jacob King enjoyment.