Jon McKiel

The world of cult songwriter Jon McKiel is one in which butterflies rise from the daisy beds while  distant wreaths of smoke vandalize the horizon. His songs are born of the bruised marshlands of remote New Brunswick, from the craggy shores of the Atlantic coast; places where nature is a powerful wonder and the made-world is in slow decay. Hex is the follow-up to McKiel’s 2020 underground favorite Bobby Joe Hope, which Aquarium Drunkard called “an unlikely masterpiece” and Gorilla vs. Bear listed as one of their favorites of that god-forsaken year. 

Hex is a bloodshot pop record steeped in our dystopian present, tempered, across its ten tracks, by an existential umami. Performed and produced in collaboration with JOYFULTALK’s Jay Crocker (who helped ferment the golden glow of Bobby Joe), the duo have once again produced a collection of songs as disquieting as they are comforting. Expertly evoked by Paul Henderson’s twisted collage on the cover, Hex is equal parts flower field and burning building. The music moves subtly between moods. The eponymous lead track is an eerie, subterranean banger whose looped percussion and dirt-nasty bassline bring to mind RZA flipping early 70s Gene Clark. Then there are moments like ‘Under Burden’, whose skittering drum machine and saccharine synths suggest the cult works of that other Bobby Brown. The album also features McKiel’s first cover committed to tape, a haunting version of a tune called ‘Concrete Sea’, as sung by Terry Jacks (of ‘Seasons In The Sun’ and Poppy Family fame). 

Regardless of mood, the songs are all adorned with the world-weary poetics heads have come to expect from McKiel. In his music, what might otherwise be construed as paranoia or pessimism, is softened by a genuine sense of longing and tenderness. His lyrics combine natural elements with bits of fantasy and lucid dreamscapes, all tangled with the transmuted horrors of our thoroughly modern present. When McKiel sings of “memories cooked down into usernames” or how “the color of time has gone from green to grey”, the listener is carried to the heart of our grim realities. When he suggests that “one song could kill the king”, we’re reminded that there may just be some dusty magic out there worth believing in.

Music:jonmckiel.bandcamp.com

Video: youtube.com/watch

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Photo Credit: Colin Medley