Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

Monday, April 27, 19:30

Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter is the result of an enduring musical alchemy between singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes and guitarist Phil Wandscher, which began in Seattle, Washington in 2001.

Blending folk, blues, orchestral pop and various psychedelic stylings, their sound culminates in what the New York Times has described as “spellbound music, rapt in fatalism and sorrow.” Known for her dusky, otherworldly vocals and lyrics that touch on the metaphysical, she was once described by MAGNET as being “less like a performer and more like a sage ” and “whether the sonic setting is one of doomy distortion or fragile finger picking, Sykes remains a truly unique vocalist whose dusky voice is capable of imparting a transcendent, almost spiritual quality to almost any tune it touches.”

The band has released five critically acclaimed albums; three on Barsuk Records (USA) Reckless Burning (2002), Oh, My Girl (2005) and Like, Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul (2007), while their fourth album Marble Son (2011) was released through Thirty Tigers in Nashville, on their own US imprint (Station Grey).

Most Recently they have released, Forever, I’ve Been Being Born, on Southern Lord (USA) and Ideologic Organ (Europe). UNCUT Magazine featured it as “Americana Record Of The Month” calling it, “rapturous psyche-folk melancholia.”

In 2004 the band was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, which brought to them a new found national audience. They have traveled extensively in the US and Europe and have had the pleasure of touring with: Sunn O))), Black Mountain, Earth, Sparklehorse, Bright Eyes, Iron And Wine, Marissa Nadler, Laura Veirs, J. Tillman, The Sadies, The Knitters, Jason Isbell, and many more. They have shared the stage with acts on opposite ends of a vast spectrum of genres, ranging from; Boris, Nicolai Dunger, Giant Sand, Calexico, Coco Rosie all the way to Steve Earle, Justin Townes Earle, Martha Wainright, Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch.

Sykes is also known for her diverse collaborations–most notably for co-writing and singing cult classic “The Sinking Belle” on the monolithic album “Altar” (Southern Lord), a joint project with art metal bands Sunn O))) and Boris (Japan). Pitchfork called The Sinking Belle the albums “centerpiece and masterpiece,” and Sykes claims the inspiration for the lyrics came from Joan Didion’s, The Year Of Magical Thinking, which she’d been reading during the writing process. Wandscher and (bassist) Bill Herzog also appear on this recording and the three have performed with the ensemble on a number of occasions, including the headlining performance at the prestigious “All Tomorrows Parties” music festival in Monticello, NY in 2010 (curated by film maker Jim Jarmusch). Sykes also collaborated on the musical score (composed by Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) for “Eternal Idol” (Shelter Press, Paris, 2015), a performance art piece written, choreographed, and directed by the acclaimed French artist, Giselle Vienne. In 2008, Sykes and Wandscher composed the music for the Seattle Shakespeare Company’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (soundtrack self-released 2008).

The two took on full production duties for “Marble Son” (2011) which moved the band progressively into its own unique genre, allowing Wandscher to explore heavier tones and more complex song structures, further blurring the lines between the avant-garde and the timeless. Spin magazine called Marble Son “a sprawling psyche rock vision” and the UK’s Line Of Best Fit called it; “a triumph… in a word”.

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter were fortunate to have worked under the guidance of notable producers; Tucker Martine, Martin Feveyear, Mell Dettmer, Randall Dunn, Johnny Sangster and most recently Seattle’s Robb Davidson.

Past and sometimes present members have included Bill Herzog (bass), also of (Earth and Joel R.L. Phelps), Eric Eagle (drums), Anne Marie Ruljancich (viola), Kevin Warner (drums), Jason Merculief (drums) and Rebecca Young (bass).