Of Earth, and Beauty, and Jesse & the Spirit

(EDITOR’S NOTE — We’re thrilled to bring you our interview with Buffalo’s Jesse James from Jesse & the Spirit, which today released a new video for the song ‘Earth.’ You can check out the video in its entirety at the bottom of this page. ‘Earth’ is the third single from Jesse & the Spirit’s forthcoming album ‘Beauty,’ a sprawling 15-song work of art that drops June 26. The album’s previously released singles include “Pleistocene” and “another waiting room.” Jesse, who now lives in Brooklyn, is a veteran of Buffalo’s music scene, having played in Buffalo bands such as the dolly sods, tomoreaux, and The Niagara River. ‘Beauty,’ which was written in Buffalo, represents a “hard turn” from Jesse & the Spirit’s previous politically-themed fictional albums (‘Peculiar Living’ and ‘OVAL’), and has been characterized by the artist as their “most personal’ work to date. Jesse & the Spirit will soon be hitting the road in support of the new album before finally wrapping up its tour with a show July 26 at Revolver Records on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. We thank Jesse for speaking with 1120 Press. Please read our story below. All photos provided.)

1120 PRESS: Thank you for speaking with us and congratulations on the upcoming LP ‘Beauty,’ which drops June 26! How are you feeling about everything now that it’s essentially wrapped and ready to be dropped into the world?

JESSE JAMES: Thanks so much for taking the time to ask me questions about “Beauty;” it’s been about five-years in the making, and it is absolutely surreal to finally be releasing it. Some of the music dates back to 2020, but the bulk of the lyrics were written in 2022 after some heavy life events. It’s a bit like reading an old diary for me; at once I can relive that time and put myself in those places but simultaneously it feels like something alien and ‘other’ — like someone else made it.

1120: You have a video that dropped today for the song ‘Earth,’ of which you gave us a sneak peek. It’s a pretty fascinating and trippy piece of art. Can you talk about what inspired the vision for the video and what you are aiming to convey? 

JJ: The song is sort of a balance beam between loss and growth, moving forward after a long-term break up and losing a pet in the same short span of time. It’s also about becoming even more yourself and pushing through to your most essential qualities through these sorts of events. I suppose the video takes it a step further in an attempt to convince the viewer they hold some sort of ‘magick’ within themselves. It wouldn’t have been possible without Jordan Rowe’s shooting and James Werick’s editing.

1120: Let’s talk about ‘Beauty.’ You mentioned that it’s your most personal and vulnerable work to date. What moved you to open yourself up to such an unprecedented extent? And can you discuss the subject matter you are exploring on the record? Much of it involves your experiences during a span in Buffalo before relocating to Brooklyn, correct?

JJ: Like pretty much every other art thing I’ve done, it was really out of necessity — just me alone in my room trying to make sense of the events in my life as they’re happening. It would be terribly reductive to call it a break-up album, but there are definitely some break-up songs on there. It was about all you can ask for in terms of long-term breakups; we’re still incredibly close friends, but that sort of thing can be earth-shattering when you’re freshly in it. This was also concurrent with the exit from the lockdown era, and at that time I think most people were, like us, re-evaluating their lives and learning again how to be in the world and what to do now that we didn’t all die and figuring out how to be oneself again and what that even means anyway.

Not long after that, my cat, Kimbie, passed away, too, and I had some other somewhat terrifying experiences later that year that I won’t get into here. Basically, a whole lot of bad stuff happened all at once and this record was me making sense of it all and finding how to reconnect the roots of myself to the rest, I guess. I say all of that more articulately through the songs, though, I think. And yeah, this was all made not long before relocating here to Brooklyn, mostly in this little cottage house next to an empty lot on Potomac that felt a lot like an urban cabin. 

1120: You called this album a ‘monolith’ — and for good reason since it includes 15 songs. What inspired you to undertake such a huge project? Is it a concept album?

JJ: The album is much like an altar, to loss and pain and growth and change. In the past, I used to plan more when it came to writing albums and I guess in a way every album I’ve made has been a concept album; that's just how I think and how I create, in these kinds of grand strokes. When I was making previous albums like “Peculiar Living” (2021), I was very methodical, following a blueprint or skeleton that I planned out in advance — like, okay, it’ll have this type of song, and then one of these after that to get to this other sound on the next one, etc. But I very purposefully did not do that when writing “Beauty.” I didn’t really know what I was making when I started it; I just started getting it all out and following that little light. It sort of made itself naturally. Next thing I knew I had this massive album that is pretty much sequenced chronologically. I can even feel the passing seasons in the songs when I listen to it. 

1120: You released a previous album titled ‘OVAL’ in January. We’re interested in

the timeline here and the writing process: How did you follow up that record with a 15-song LP just a few months later? Are the albums related in any way?

JJ: So, funny enough, “Beauty” is actually older than ‘OVAL,’ which was written entirely in New York after moving. Living in the city has constricted me creatively in terms of the volumes I can hit at home, and I think for ‘OVAL’ this proved to be a positive constriction, forcing me to make some really interesting electronic music, whereas, of course, I can’t exactly do full on black metal in my building here without pissing off a bunch of neighbors (laughs). Once a concept started to form around ‘OVAL,’ I realized it was meant to be tied to the universe of the album before it, “Peculiar Living,” which came with a 136-page found-document science fiction novella about an insidious corporation, a billionaire cult, and a journalist’s journey toward it. While not directly a sequel, ‘OVAL’ is another project of that same corporation, ‘Emissionaries,’ and exists in the same universe. Both of those albums were more explicitly political, using this sort of fictional world. ‘Beauty’ pretty much has nothing to do with either and is a hard turn away from the fictional into personal memoir.

1120: There are a lot of artists who genre-mash, but we haven’t come across many who incorporate so many genres from song to song — or even within the songs themselves — on one record like you are doing on this LP. In listening to the songs you’ve released already, and in going through your catalog, your music infuses trip hop, dream pop, ambient, techno, folk, slowcore, and black metal. Can you talk about your philosophy and willingness to meld together such a wide range of genres?

JJ: There’s not so much a philosophy behind it as much as it’s mostly me trying out a bunch of different methods of expression and getting bored with just doing one thing. In terms of marketing, it’s of course much better to have one thing that you do and you can present that thing in a neat little package and maybe find a label that also does that same thing and you can find your place in the algorithm and Spotify playlists that also do that thing, but I think my heart would shrivel up and die if I ever actually tried to do that. The human experience is just so much more vast than one sound; there are universes inside universes within all of us. In a way I am most myself when I’m constantly destroying each self-concept I have preconceived and building anew. With this record in particular, I sort of treated genres like moods or emotions. Some artists are really good at extruding a bunch of influences and genres into one sound, but for me it was more interesting to try and treat them like movements in some sort of deranged symphony. An easier answer to this question might’ve been I just listen to a lot of different music and think “hey I could probably do that,” whether it’s breaks or pop or black metal.

1120: Given that we’re a Buffalo publication and you were in a handful of bands in the city, we have to ask whether you keep up on the music scene here at all and whether you ever get back home?

JJ: Buffalo and I have agreed to always remain in each other’s lives. I have a deep love for the West Coast of New York, its Great Lakes and massive sky and perfect summers and deadly blizzards that remind you how small you really are and how much power nature really has. It is at once a place of peace and a place of humbling discomfort; there is truly some sort of strange and mystical aura that surrounds it. I visit quite often and am sure I will return. These days I consider myself to be a New York State artist, whether I’m engrossed in the electric rhythm of the five boroughs, adventuring in the taiga of the Adirondack mountains, or reconnecting with the quiet winter tranquility up North near the Peace Bridge. I don’t think I truly appreciated that wonderful little pirate town for all its worth until I left it. My friend Tori says we shall all return. And maybe leave again. And then return once or twice more.

1120: The year’s not even half over and soon you’ll already have dropped two LPs. You’ve been quite prolific. Do you have anything else on the agenda in 2025? 

JJ: The plan was to drop three Spirit albums this year, but now the third album, “UNDOING,” is feeling like it could maybe be its own project, so I’m figuring that out. I am sitting on quite a bit more music, though. There’ll likely be a release from the ambient project I do with James from Auxcab called “The Niagara River” as well, and at some point, dolly sods will need to release the EP we recorded four years ago. I’m nearly done writing another diary-like album about leaving home as well, though I’m not sure what banner that belongs under yet. Time will tell.

1120: Thank you again for speaking with us. Before we go, is there anything else you want to add that we haven’t touched on?

JJ: Right now, the world is brutal, awful, and dark, but it is worth saving and we are not helpless. Don’t obey in advance. Join an organization that suits you, get to know your neighbors, and build community with your friends. We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to win. Solidarity is how we get it. Free Palestine.

See Jesse & the Spirit’s video for ‘Earth’ below. You can also check out Jesse & The Spirit’s other videos HERE