JJJJJerome Ellis - Vesper Sparrow (Shelter Press)

The Slow Music Movement
14 hours ago
2 min read

The cover for JJJJerome Ellis' Vesper Sparrow album, showing Ellis in white vest, standing near a bridge support in long grass by the side of a reflective blue river. The setting is serene with the foliage and shadows creating a tranquil mood.

JJJJJerome Ellis has embraced the art of music as therapy, looking his childhood stutter in the face, he now explores, even honours stuttering through music. Soaking up familiar gospel roots as a child, he uses the sax, organ, hammered dulcimer, electronics and his voice in an improvisatory Afrofuturistic manner to wilfully deconstruct and painstakingly reconstruct his recordings into soundscapes that work across performance art, scoring, storytelling, A/V and multimedia disciplines, well as long as they require an alternative soundtrack. Oh yeah, if that wasn't enough he's even lectured in Sound Design at Yale.

JJJJerome Ellis playing keyboard on stage in front of a vast array of large organ pipes. He looks focused, creating a contemplative mood, helped by the black and white photo.

Ellis also has his sophomore album dropping in November on the ever great Shelter Press imprint and is giving due notice with the LP title track, "Velvet Sparrow" an inventive cover of an old gospel hymn "His Eye is on the Sparrow", which he learnt as a child. The track has also been a long time coming, with Ellis patiently collaging the track of a period of seven years, stitching together recordings originally made in a Brooklyn apartment and at the University of Illinois.

Easing into life with effected sax notes swooping like swallows around the studio, the restless soundscape is soon joined by some minimal piano and Ellis in ethereal soul mode, his voice accentuated when someone opens the studio window and sets the sax sounds free, and just as well, that voice sounds amazing on its own with only the sparse, vocal accentuating piano, and shortly after a succinct sax infusion for company. And so the song continues for six, all too short minutes, a heart wrenching window into Ellis' childhood and his gospel and jazz roots. But hold tight, there's a twist in the tale. Just as you're getting comfortable and starting to stare into your own soul, an ominous ambient electronic cloud rushes in, quickly building in intensity with Ellis and his instruments struggling to make themselves heard over the tumult, something of a surprise, but more so a fitting finale for this sprawling slice of affecting avant-soul. Only seventy five days to go until the album.