“I dearly love Seattle,” Jesus says. “I moved out of Washington [State] just a few months ago, but I love and miss it very much. The atmosphere is always foggy and misty, but it’s never too cold, and you can go to the mountains where there’s volcanoes, desert and forest, or you can go to the ocean. There’s just so much nature, and so much of it has been preserved and protected, that it feels like a really alive place. It’s almost primeval.
“I feel like I need to live in an area that always has that. I’m very, very sensitive to the environment, and what’s around me when I’m recording. It’s so much about the setting of the music. It feels like a movie sometimes, when you’re writing music for a person in a particular scene in your mind, it works even better if you’re actually there living it. It’s very holistic and real and visceral, so it’s very important that I’m surrounded by that kind of influence.”
It has clearly served her well. With five albums under her 27-year-old belt (most recently Taiga in 2014), Jesus is someone to whom inspiration strikes at a rate of knots. It has also served as an unexpected testament to her personal growth. While most of us have a slew of photos, scars and bad break-ups left in our wake, for a select few there’s also a very public record of the artistry that came from that.
“I used to be really ashamed and embarrassed by my older work, because you learn so much. You look back and think ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe [what I did there] is OK.’ It’s like a rush when I hear an old song, of memories of where I was when I wrote it, what I was feeling and what it means. The blood that went into it. And to me, that’s what’s coming now as I’m getting older and revisiting these older songs. That’s exciting, because it’s like reading an old diary. You’re drinking up this old nostalgia.”
Her performance for Melbourne Music Week is going to show another side of Jesus all over again (and no, it never gets old talking about someone called Jesus in such a fashion). She will be performing in collaboration with Penny Quartet, showcasing songs from the breadth of her catalogue. Given the nature of her music, producing it live is often an exercise in creative compromise. But here, we’re going to see something much more alive and stirring.
“When I got this opportunity, ‘Do you want to work with this string quartet?’ I almost busted into a little dance. This is what I truly love, because it’s about the music,” Jesus says. “Because I produce almost everything myself where not a lot can be played live, here I told them I don’t want any electronics. I just want it to be strings and voice, I’m hoping it can be totally unplugged.
“I don’t want to mic my voice, because I hate microphones so much. I’m excited because it’s an opportunity where I can really perform and sing with other instruments, and we can push and pull, there can be interesting dynamics on stage, and it’ll feel more free. Rather than being on this train where you have to always hit your marks, here it’s more about the meaning and the ideas.”
Additionally, Jesus has agreed to a sit-down Q&A session, which I gently tease about. Why on earth did she agree to such a thing? Haven’t those leeches in the audience demanded enough of you?
“Those things are usually very intimidating. My music is very much who I am, but deep down, I’m a mid-Western girl with an incredible humility,” she says. “There’s a kind of self-deprecation. So sometimes I feel like, well I get a little nervous. But I think it’ll be fine. You are who you are, and that’s in your music as much as it’s in you. I hope that’s what people will see.”
By Adam Norris
