Jared Fairfield- "Mysteries"

Jared Fairfield (Of Orange Door West, Asesquimal, and Mark and Jared) has finished, out of nowheresville, a brand new full-length album of songs to release to the world. Entitled 'Mystereies', this is Mr. Fairyfield's most cohesive, diversive, and confident collection yet. Have a listen to the title track right here:

Jared Fairfield- 'Mysteries' by jakobbattick

Jared's music is indebted to 60s wanderers and freaks like Pearls Before Swine, The Incredible String Band, Marc Bolan or Vashti Bunyan, but (in my eyes) it easily transcends this stylistic base and comes from somewhere much more 'now', somewhere even more cosmic and vast, someplace so surreal it could even be considered beyond decade and time despite its being 'now'. At his most experimental, Jared works in almost noise/textural territory, employing drones and madness to craft massive walls of broken-structured sculpture-songs, and at his most approachable, Jared writes gorgeous, aching little woods-psych-pop songs that are good enough to break the hearts of sensitive record nerds everywhere. I have to always stress the fact that Jared comes to rest in a psych/cosmic style not out of trendiness or fashion, but out a natural obsession with all things yearning, melting, spiritual, effervescent, and fleeting. I read an online review of his recent release The Great Boiling Atom that quickly tossed him off (but positively so) as being "indebted to Devendra Banhart's early four-track recordings". NOT SO FOLKS. Jared is highly concerned with space and atmosphere, just as much as he is concerned with building wild, odd arrangements on atypical instruments (Peanut violin thing, autoharp, clavinet, $3 kazoo, kids' flute thing, etc.) and just as much as he is concerned (often) with sweet, beautiful melodies. What I'm trying to say here is that Jared has his own thing, his own sound, his own approach, his own obsessions, his own very unique spin on a whole mishmash of culture both new and old.

In listening to this new release all the way through, I can safely say that it goes several lightyears beyond The Great Boiling Atom. Whereas the latter was fractured, noisy, and only barely held itself together, Mysteries has something approaching a sort of classical entire-album structure, with a slight return on the song 'Feelings' and a definite distinction and flow between and from song to song. There are moments of fragile, whispy, miniaturized loveliness a la TGBA, but it also pushes the lusciousness of its soundscape even further. Mysteries is made up of real, actual songs (for the most part), whereas TGBA was more of a collection of mad sketches, snapshots plucked quickly from Fairfield's bizarre mind and left to rest in their early stages of development.

Over the course of Mysteries, I was most blown away by the madcap and free-wheeling range of sounds presented. The influence of 60s yeh-yeh pop (Francois Hardy or Frances Gall) is evidenced in both Jared's wild, unabashed falsetto singing, and also in the impeccable classic pop structures and sensibilities of tracks like 'Mysteries' or 'The Queen'. Then, there are the completely unexpected Fuzz freakouts like the solo at the end of the title track or 'Real Men'. There are moments of 'Mysteries' that sound like lofi garage Hendrixisms or, better yet, lost Black Sabbath absent-minded jamouts that got all fucked up and freshened up with a freer, more chaotic approach (Think The Stooges on "LA BLUES", perhaps). I could go on and on, but there are many more details to be revealed (Including the actual album cover itself) in the immediate future.

I say all of these things not because Jared Fairfield is my friend, or because he is a fellow Mainer. I am always blown away by the sheer fact that Jared is so hush hush with his work, and by the fact that more of the people who have heard it have not flipped for it entirely. 'Mysteries' is the album that, if properly put out into a scant few channels here and there, could easily convert the audience that Jared's music really deserves. I can honestly say, in my best effort at not bullshitting all of you out there, that 'Mysteries' (Although imperfect to some degree, like all things and like all local music endeavors especially) is a real sleeper classic Maine record, a valid and powerfully strong entry into this whole world of "NEW WEIRD AMERICA" (Everybody has hopefully always known that America has been really weird at its core, so I don't fully understand the urge to label it as such now and all of a sudden) hogwash that the music press and critics keep traipsing through around every corner. Keep your eyes peeled at those weird shops in and around Portland to pick up a real copy sometime this summer. More news is on its way, more secrets, more songs, more samplings, more rantings, more almost-hyperbolic praise.