Jonathan Jeremiah – Horsepower For The Streets

Description

Horsepower For The Streets is Jonathan Jeremiah’s fifth album, his second for PIAS, a label which feels like a good home for a soulful singer linked to a cadre of artists more readily associated with mainland Europe than his own island. So far at least. Much of the new album was written in Saint-Pierre-De-Côle, the countryside beyond Bordeaux, during breaks in Jeremiah’s first tour of France. Long walks and open log fires. You can take the boy out of Brent … and the continent welcomes him with open arms (see also Tindersticks, Scott Matthew, revered across the Channel, where the artistic tradition is less distracted by Londinium hyperbole).  The album was recorded in Bethlehemkerk, a renovated monumental church in Amsterdam Noord, with Amsterdam Sinfonietta, a 20-piece string orchestra. There’s clearly a European influence at work here, a bond which has endured.

Since he appeared on the scene in 2011 with A Solitary Man, Jeremiah has been likened to such iconic performers as Scott Walker, Serge Gainsbourg, Terry Callier. The clarity of his delivery draws the listener into the landscape he paints in such detail, whilst at the same time leaving much to the imagination.

“Perhaps knowing I’m a detached character in many ways, that doesn’t stop me from caring or wanting to show some love and attention to others. I guess I just think I could show such things through song.”

Created from sunrise to sundown, stretching far beyond the horizon, this album is simultaneously of its time and utterly timeless. It captures the groove of earlier decades without feeling the need to be nostalgic. The strumming guitar, uplifting strings and harmonies could be traced back to Scott & Serge & Terry.  Neverthless, this is just as much an album for right here, right now.