Music Blog

Jesse Sykes & I spoke just before hew show at Mississippi Studios on January 13th 2010. Aware of Sykes distaste for many things modern and the attitude "of the 21st century," as she's put it, I asked first:

What do you think of irreverence?

JS: "Not much." ... 
You seem a little annoyed...
JS:  "Annoyed - yeah, I am,  it is upsetting. I don't care for it -  it's like a play that we write off."

OK, (staying with irreverence) so would it be fair to compare you to Lady Gaga?

JS: "Ohhh...  you know... people like that just aren't a mystery... she seems... I'm sure  it's seems creative and fun, but... it's... I can't be enthusiastic about it. I feel separate from that. You know? I don't have TV or internet, it's too hard. Too hard to be an artist and deal with all this condensed digital stuff - it's reality compressed."

Sykes is famous for her husky "Marianne Faithful-like" inflection, but thankfully she doesn't rely on it, as her  tonally rich full voice is better. On 2004's Oh, My Girl she gets it dead right - it's a great folk album;  2007's Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls Of The Soul, her last album, added a few more upbeat elements but it's the upcoming album (this spring) featuring six musicians and a fuller  sound that could signal a more significant shift.

JS: "it's more raunchy, even psychedelic - less folky, more of a 60's San Francisco vibe - and harmonies!". "What I sing about isn't literal - it's fragments of human emotion, pastoral impressions, snapshots..." then she added without any sense of contradiction: "I feel my writing's getting more defined, less dependent upon the allusive."

The current tour is billed as thelast as a duo with Wandscher before full band goes out in support of the new album and the backstory is that these two dated for years up until 2008.  At times it's just about a perfect experience, the gravelled or soaring voice complimented by discreet guitar counterpoints, but their long and generous set came dangerously close to becoming repetitive: Sykes delivering devastating refrains then staring across in seeming reverence at  Wandscher, head down reworking another reverbed counter melody.

I'd asked Sykes earlier how important their partnership was:

JS: "Hugely important - he comes up with all the counter melodies...  what he does makes me respond, makes me work harder."

On stage, most of the banter came from Sykes who was witty and persistent in railing against modern media - she got a laugh telling how some idiot who was texting in the front row  as she sang  was yanked out and thrown back... Another notable interlude saw the (until then) silent Wandscher suddenly start rapping in a very non-PC manner about not rescuing women and refusing to shut up, that incident left Sykes shaking her head and staring down instead of reverently at Wandscher for the next song.
It seems that to enjoy Sykes music you have to take time and make space, it requires concentration, so I asked her:

Space - what does that make you think of?

JS: " I wish I had more! But wait - outer space, or inner space? I'm always aware of my body as a presence in the world, and in another sense, I'm inspired by depth of field... by distances... tree-lines."

She's also spoken about songs suitable for deadly situations:
What music would you recommend for funerals  or weddings?

JS:  "For Weddings, I don't know, something by Leonard Cohen...  For the funeral, ah yes, I'd want music for friends to enjoy; like Townes Van Zandt's - To LIve Is To Fly. "

Is that your funeral or someone else's?
JS: "Mine. ..  You know I think it should be raw, people singing a cappella, from the heart. You know I'm the kind of person who would throw myself down and claw the earth, people need to cry, but are so suppressed. My family is half jewish, half catholic, the jews will just want to bury you and move on but the catholics get emotional, I remember my mother throwing herself down on the couch, sobbing, inconsolable..."

What's your first memory of anyone hanging washing on a clothesline?

JS: "My grandmother's, we didn't have a clothesline, she had one of those circular or octagonal ones... I used to play next to it in the jungle-gym and I liked the shape."

Sykes seemed reticent to talk about her upbringing in Mount Kisco, New York State - a wooded area north of Long Island sound. She's written of how she's "learned how to let go of that constant longing for where I came from." adding to me only "I grew up in the country, and even in bad times I see beauty".

When did you last skip, and why?

JS: "God. Sadly I can't remember. I hop though, when I'm happy."
And, she added, the last time that happened was when she saw her fiance, who lives in Iowa.

How many swans do you recommend, per bathtub?
JS:  "Two, because they like to be together - they mate for life. They had them back east, but here I always see Blue Herons.

That fiance is an ornithologist who owns an African Grey, but he lives in Iowa and they see each other every few weeks, "it's hard" she says.
And as I forgot to ask her what the title of the new album (on Barsuk Records) will be, I thought, perhaps it should be called - still together - yet apart.

Writing and photographs: Copyright: Zaph Mann 2010 -.  Reproduction with attribution is fine. Original publisher: opbmusic.org 2010

Listen To Jesse Sykes's opbmusic In Studio session!

Tagged: interview