Born in Montreal and now based in New York, Jesse Marchant has previously released four albums. On the first two he went by JBM and released with Partisan Records and Western Vinyl respectively. He has made numerous headline tours of the United States and Canada and has been featured in national support slots for Alt-J, Other Lives, Nathaniel Rateliff, Sondre Lerche, Rogue Wave, Cloud Cult, Heartless Bastards, Local Natives, AA Bondy, Damien Jurado, and many more.
Antelope Running, Marchant’s stunning fifth album, officially dropped on June 25th. And only Marchant himself would be surprised to see a certain headline gracing the pages of industry publications.
Antelope Running finds Marchant traveling through time to recall a near-death experience from his youth and a hotel suite bender just before he met his wife. His recollections are as varied as the backdrops for his writing: A hazy stay in a stream-side Catskill cottage, months at home in Brooklyn with protests and riots at his doorstep, and a summer of isolation in the forest that culminated with the news that he was about to become a father.
The songs on Antelope Running paint the portrait of a man consumed with compassion, looking back. Marchant’s acceptance and longing are interwoven, yielding a depth of writing that is clearer and more significant than his past efforts.
Throughout the album, Marchant’s baritone is deep and clear, as he allows himself a greater vocal range and freedom than ever before. Clarinet arrangements by Stuart Bogie (Arcade Fire, Antibalas) occasionally overtake moments of songs in a manner so beautiful that it forces you to surrender and listen. Marchant’s longtime drummer Jason Lawrence and bass player Logan Coale (Taylor Swift, The National) return to form the rhythm section, and the recordings comprise mainly of live takes from a Sept. 2020 session at Goodwin’s Isokon Studio in Woodstock, NY.
Today Glide is excited to premiere a special video for “Dirty Snow,” one of the standout tracks on the new album. The video features Marchant performing solo on piano, which allows his vocals to shine alongside the emotion of the song. We can hear traces of Jim James in his vocals as well as a 70s folk-pop sensibility. There is something both nostalgic and uplifting about the simple piano arrangement, with a melody that lingers in your mind after listening. One might be inclined to call this folk or even intellectual pop, but the truth is that it exists within its own category as Marchant proves to be a true one of a kind artist.
Marchant describes the process and inspiration behind the song:
“I wrote ‘Dirty Snow’ flat in the middle of the pandemic, recycling a piano melody I had come up with while recording my previous LP at Isokon Studio in Woodstock, NY – incidentally, the morning after Trump was elected. The piano tuner came by early that morning, dumbfounded, and spent 3 hours on a tuning that should have lasted 30 minutes, pausing frequently to lament the loss and muse on about the potentially dire fate of the country. We were both there with our heads down in disappointment, and when I sat down to test the tuning, I played the chords that would later become this song. Almost 4 years later I found myself at the same piano, in the same studio, recording the finished version. With three of the members from the last session, I was feeling a deep sense of gratitude for our reunion and for the rich contributions they were making to my new songs, along with a feeling of hope for all that might change for the better. In my life and in the world around me. The song to me, while occasionally referencing bleak past and future moments, is imbued with a similar hope – for deeper connection and for a greater appreciation of one’s life. It was recorded live with Jason Lawrence on drums, Logan Coale on Bass and myself on piano. The fuzz guitars in the choruses were overdubbed by D. James Goodwin and took the song in a direction that I love and could not myself have imagined. D. James Goodwin and I produced the track, along with the rest of the album, which was mixed and mastered by him at his same Woodstock studio.”
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