JACQ - Starlight
JACQ released his cover of Muse’s “Starlight” just moments ago. “Starlight” is the second of a series of planned monthly releases, following on the heels of the first, “Oblivion.”
JACQ
Explaining why he chose to cover the song, JACQ says, “I loved the song from the moment I heard it. The emotion is so raw and not the surface, with such a beautiful melody. I’ve always been a fan of Muse and it was fascinating to me to simplify the song and really focus on the lyric. It really taps into the experience of missing someone and questioning why you’re doing something if it takes you away from who you love.”
JACQ is Grammy winning producer and artist Rich Jacques, whose work spans the gamut from well-known artists to those with their foot in the door. In the role of JACQ, Jacques challenges state-of-the-art sonic construction and the prevailing obsession for complication as an end in itself, and instead highlights a minimalist approach with its sense of imminence and proximate urgency.
Opening on the delicate beauty of a solo piano accompanied by JACQ’s evocative voice, “Starlight” flows into a pop melody stripped down to the essentials.
Opening on the delicate beauty of a solo piano accompanied by JACQ’s evocative voice, “Starlight” flows into a pop melody stripped down to the essentials. The simple colors of the piano expand as a trickling guitar adds clean, graceful accents.
Gentle and measured, the flow of the song infuses the tune with intense pangs of melancholy, regret, loneliness, and an overwhelming yearning for an affectionate touch, the mysterious symbolism of skin on skin.
JACQ’s voice, affluent with quiet reflective emotion, exudes exquisitely subtle nuances of aching timbres. When his tones rise to falsetto, delicious fractured notes enhance the potency of his feelings.
“Far away / The ship is taking me far away / Far away from the memories / Of the people who care if I live or die.”
JACQ’s transparent rendering of “Starlight” is sublimely superb, elusively familiar, yet tantalizingly tender and graceful.
