The Long Lost Somethins - Jacob

Published on 20 Dec 2020

The Long Lost Somethins' album release Jacob hits a special place in my heart; it's a recording collage and a creative one - the types of recordings I prefer. They are pieces of notes, confessions, and sometimes even relatable truths.

Jacob at points is drumless, and sometimes it isn't, but the tempo itself isn't always replaced with live drums or a drum machine. Sometimes it's ambient noise, guitar scraping, guitar feedback, infinite sustain of sound, or other elements that fill in the phantom tempos in songs from Jacob. Examples of this can be heard in the first half of the album - The Ladder, Jacob Held High, and Track 8.

The album continues on with the track All Treasure with a quotable and strangely enough, sometimes relatable chorus - "all treasure is shit unless I know where I buried it". The Great Bottom Lake, to me, stands out as this obscure pop hit without being pop, which is the type of song that I cling to the most. It has another chorus grabbing quote - "it's hell on earth and there's a whole 'lotta fire".

From Misstep to the last track Bald, Jake Wheeler shows an interesting side of folk. From what I'm hearing, sounds like noise folk with personal recordings of Jake's moments in life as heard on Bald.

Albums like Jacob will always be the best ones to listen to, for me anyway. They're the arts and crafts of audio - ideas, lyrics, chords, the hissing of tape and effects all perfectly glued together.