From solitude to serenity: Jess Kerber’s quietly powerful debut.
Eight years after picking up an acoustic guitar for the first time at the age of 12, Jess Kerber began writing the songs that would soon become her debut album, ‘From Way Down Here’. The Nashville singer-songwriter spent years experimenting with different tunings and picking styles, finding inspiration in artists like Joni Mitchell and Adrienne Lenker and writing emotive lyrics which pluck at your heartstrings whilst Kerber plucks at her guitar. All of these elements come together to create ‘From Way Down Here’, a folky, acoustic acknowledgement of emotion.
The key influence of the album was Kerber’s experience of turning twenty and living on her own. These songs were written after spending long stretches of time alone – even going days without seeing a single person. This album is her reflections on loneliness, nostalgia, tranquility and the importance of feeling comfortable and at home with yourself. The sense of quiet serenity that Kerber experienced during this solitary period is interlaced in the fibres of this album, within the soothing strums of her acoustic guitar and her delicate, humming vocals.
The album begins with ‘Never Again’, a slow acoustic song which echoes Lizzy McAlpine’s introspective lyrics and subdued sound. This track is about nostalgia and the bittersweet recognition that you can never really return to any memory or moment, even if you remember it with an immense sharpness and clarity – ‘I’ll know it forever, but never again’. The memorable picking pattern is assisted by Kerber’s vocals which are at their most striking on this track, with her voice seamlessly moving between breathy lulls to more powerful bursts – showing off the mastery that she has over her own instrument.
‘I Wonder If I’ll Forget This’ was the first glimpse into Kerber’s debut album when it was released as a single in March this year. This track is reminiscent of Elliot Smith’s emotional delicacy, possessing the same combination of pensive, melancholic lyrics and softly plucked guitar strings. Recorded in a large room with two guitars and the intrusion of various apartment sounds, it’s sonically distant and sombre – adding an extra layer of loneliness to the song, and ultimately creating a devastatingly introspective track about a lack of control and a sense of numbness.
The title track, ‘From Way Down Here’, may sound gloomy but is actually a message of hope and inspiration. Written after a long walk, listening to her favourite music and revelling in alone time, Kerber finds peace in the knowledge that she is only a small thing in a very large world – ‘everything is tall from way down here’. This track touches on her belief that there is something very special and intentional about her place in the world, despite her feeling tiny in the grand scheme of things.
In spite of the overall melancholy and slow-tempo sonics that shroud this album, Kerber dips her toes into a more upbeat, folk-pop sound with ‘Next To You’. Remaining consistent with the introspective subjects of her songs, ‘Next To You’ is about dreams and the different ways they tell us things about ourselves that we may not have realised yet. ‘Tropical Storm’ is another cheery track on the album, with a heavier drumbeat, a guitar riff and bright synths. These two tunes demonstrate a different side to Jess Kerber, turning away from her comforting melancholy for a moment and giving listeners a peek into the range she can possess.