Little Dreams
Jeremie Albino
Hard Time
There is no shortage of confidence in Jeremie Albino’s music. Whether he’s playing rollicking oldschool rock’n’roll or delivering slower, grander tracks drawn together with poetic metaphor, he captures rapt attention and makes it seem effortless. Debut album Hard Time was recorded between his Toronto hometown and Nashville. Before pursuing music full-time, he was working on farms in Prince Edward County, ON, and small-town, hard-working charm is pervasive in many of his lyrics. “Midnight Wedding” tells the story of a couple of small-town kids falling in love, while “Wildfire” is about a man who refuses to leave his house and all that he’s worked for in the face of encroaching natural disaster.
Albino is no stranger to the sensuality of poetry, either. You can smell Ontario’s lilac season from the rhythmic words of the strings-laden “Lilac Way,” while “The Cabin” plays out an acoustic fantasy with harmonies and images of escape so precise that it’s hard not to fall in love. But these moments are buried treasures next to the jumpy, danceable singles “Last Night” and “Hard Time,” sparkling guitar jaunts that keep the album frantic enough to be unpredictable. Closing on “Shipwreck” — the first song that Albino ever finished — a harmonica returns like sonic nostalgia and Albino lilts out, somewhat encapsulating the energy of the album’s pop-to-wistful flow. (Sleepless)
How much do your life experiences influence your writing?
A lot of my songs start with one line from my own
kick off the first half of the album, with warping distortion leaking from the guitars and bass. The longest track, “Superbug,” drags listeners through gritty, James Hetfield-esque vocals that burst through the fuzz of the instrumental sections of the song. Tapped guitar frets babble out breakneck guitar riffs, whipping through the rest of the record like a jackrabbit on fire.
As one should expect from King experience and a world grows around it. Like “Midnight Wedding” — I would bike down the road to the farm I used to live and work at because the girl I was seeing was living there. I biked over and I thought, oh, there’s the line: “I rode down to your house / threw a rock up, hit your window and I wait till you come out.” It fit the world.
What is it about storytelling that attracts you?
Sometimes I wish they were my own worlds, so I write them. Or I find the imagery romantic or dramatic. Many of the things I write about I’ve never done. “Klondike Man” is a song about panning for gold. “Midnight Wedding” is about getting married at a chapel. It’s little dreams, you know? I start a story and I keep working away. While I’m working, I’m thinking about what the characters are doing and eventually, hopefully, a song comes of it.
Gizz, Infest the Rats’ Nest never repeats itself, flying through idea after idea like a heart-stopping drop into the rock’n’roll depths of “Hell,” the final track. It’s never safe to assume anything about King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, but one can guess that this band have an intense musical agenda and a never-ending appointment with a stupefied audience. (Flightless / ATO) FOLK