Exclusive Premieres

Exclusive Premiere: Jerk “Celestial Voices”

Jazz

“Celestial Voices” is the latest and final single from Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, beatmaker and jazz musician Jerk’s upcoming album, ‘Some Cosmic Shift’ on DeepMatter. The track follows previous singles “Earthrise” and “In Orbit”, the former being picked as one of Tina Edwards jazz tracks of the year, 2020.

“The track was simply named after the synthesizer preset I used on the recording, but to me it became emblematic of how the track came together. We only rehearsed this arrangement twice before recording it. So, the track was a product of the collective consciousness we’ve developed over the years of making music together.“

Jerk is the brainchild of composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Joshua Kinney. Based in Brooklyn, NY, the project is an exploration of the connection between jazz and hip-hop with compositions blurring the lines between hip hop beats and instrumental jazz compositions.

As a band, Jerk is Joshua Kinney on Saxophone, Carey Ozmun on Trumpet, Jean Matthieu Carvin on Keyboards, Mikey Migliore on Bass, and Martine Wade on Drums. Jerk’s releases include a trio of EPs (Pink, Yellow, and Green), a full-length beat tape entitled “Pressing On”, and his forthcoming live jazz album entitled ‘Some Cosmic Shift’.

“The track came together in a few waves.

The first version came in 2018 – It was largely inspired by slow jams of the 70s like Dionne Warwick’s “Deja Vu”, and that was originally going to be the vibe of the entire track.

In 2019, the band was playing a lot of shows, and I had the idea to stitch our set together with improvised drones. It was something that was different every night, and it brought a new level of consciousness to our playing as a band.

At the beginning of 2020, I started getting heavily into house music for the first time. I wanted to make the entire track a house beat, but it ended up losing a lot of its original charm.

Two weeks before the recording session, all of these elements just came together – We would keep the beginning as a slow jam, transition with a drone, drop into a house beat, and have our long-time friend Matt Krane play a synthesizer solo.”

“Celestial Voices” is released on all platforms on July 16, with the full album ‘Some Cosmic Shift’ dropping on August 14.

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