Jason Bajada is an artist who can be frank and straightforward in a soothing way, and his new nine-track album offers a contemplative appreciation of the places where life takes us. A California sun and Brooklyn road trips fill the Montréal-based singer-songwriter’s evocative lyrics on Crushed Grapes, written in New York, Montréal, the Magdalen Island, and Los Angeles and co-produced with Connor Seidel (Charlotte Cardin, Elliot Maginot, Matt Holubowski, 1969 Collective) . The words seep of mellow hangovers; taking it easy; and pondering that debaucherous night of drinking, smoking, and talking over Leonard Cohen LPs with a lovesick friend while laying on the living room rug. He tells his tale, painting and inviting scene. Crushed Grapes is an album with which we can see ourselves evolving; it inspires us to enjoy the good times, laugh until we cry, and tell ourselves that life can be bittersweet and melancholy must not always be so harsh.
“Crushed Grapes was written over several years,” says Bajada. “I wrote the first songs as I was coming out of a dark period, still feeling sore. Then wrote the next ones while relearning to walk with a spring in my step, each song helping me get further away from the abyss. To me, this album is about learning to slow dance with melancholy. During a four-month exile in California, I read John Fante’s Ask the Dust (he was Charles Bukowski’s favourite author) and I came upon this amazing metaphor: ‘[…] her eyes looked like crushed grapes.’ Fante’s poetry played a major part in the writing of my album’s title song. After crying every tear, your river eventually runs dry. Transformed. Wiser. Lighter. A calm after the storm.”
FCC Warning: Track 1, “Snake,” Track 3, “Humble Lion.” Digital servicing includes clean edits.
Recommended Tracks: Track 10, “Snake (clean edit),” Track 11, “Humble Lion (clean edit,” Track 2, “Walt Disney,” Track 6, “Zombie Cry”
RIYL: Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty
Label: Audiogram
Goes For Adds 10/4
