Darren Jessee - Never Gonna Get It
PREMIERE: DARREN JESSEE RELEASES SUMPTUOUS ‘NEVER GONNA GET IT’
North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Darren Jessee introduces his new single, “Never Gonna Get It,” a beautifully fluid song full of haunting yearning. From his forthcoming album, Remover, “Never Gonna Get It” reflects luxurious nuances of elegance and introspective exploration.
Darren Jessee | Photo: Dustin Condren
Well-known as co-founder and drummer of the alt-pop band Ben Folds Five, Jessee has a gold record, a platinum record about which he says, “I never called them to get it,” and shared in a recent Grammy Award – “Someone told me they would mail me a certificate if I wanted.” In other words, he’s a potent musical force, yet remains in the shadows.
Since 2006, Jessee’s released four albums as Hotel Lights, while simultaneously drumming for an array of much-admired and celebrated outfits, providing drums for Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There, followed by becoming part of Durham-based band Hiss Golden Messenger, playing on Hallelujah Anyhow. He also contributed to A Deeper Understanding, for which The War on Drugs received the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.
Prior to these credits, he was with Ben Folds Five, co-writing the band’s hit song, “Brick.”
The result is exquisitely gorgeous, powerfully moving, and implicitly imminent.
“Never Gonna Get It” opens on elusive shimmers flowing into a gleaming, low-slung guitar backed by sumptuous strings, glowing on translucent sweeping textures. Interweaving layers of gentle colors infuse the harmonics with creamy gliding floods of ethereal graceful surfaces.
Jessee’s velvety, soft voice imbues the lyrics with melancholic-laced timbres, soothing on one level, yet exuding intense passionate longing on another level. There’s a halcyon palpable energy to his voice, giving the music a mood of mysterious symbolism as if ruminating on regrets and lost prospects.
The lightly swelling current of the song delivers intimate outpourings of profound emotions, merging tints of lustrous dream-pop with orchestral prog-rock-lite suffusions. The result is exquisitely gorgeous, powerfully moving, and implicitly imminent.
Superbly wrought, on “Never Gonna Get It” Darren Jessee evokes complex successions of alluring textures, as well as emotional vulnerability.
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