Jacknife Lee announces debut album
Album release: 29th May
Label: Slow Kids Records
More info: Jacknife Lee’s website
Producer Jacknife Lee (The Killers, Regina Spektor, U2, R.E.M., Empire Of The Sun, Jack Garratt, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Snow Patrol) is today sharing news of his latest project – the first under his own name – an album featuring Genesis Owusu, Earl St Clair, Beth Ditto, Sneaks, Haviah Mighty, Petite Noir, Muthoni Drummer Queen, Bibi Bourelly, Barny Fletcher, Aloe Blacc, and Open Mike Eagle. The album’s first single Made It Weird feat. Open Mike Eagle is accompanied by a Jackie Radinsky video which is availble to share now.
“The Jacknife Lee” is an album with its roots in unpredictability. Lee freely admits that he had no intention of even making a record. However, with so much time spent inside what he calls the “studio bubble”, he began to write letters to a variety of artists, to express his admiration and thank them for the great work they were doing. It is here that the story of “The Jacknife Lee” begins, as intermittent pockets of studio time, WhatsApped beats and verses, and organised “blind dates”, turned into the relationships that would form a carefully curated record.
“The Jacknife Lee” is also a record that sees one of the world’s most in-demand producers discovering new ways of working, and revelling in the role of being a music fan again. He would immerse himself in processes that would be alien to some of the Big Names, and found his love for the record in amongst the experimentation and uncertainty of what would come from it. He says: “It’s usually my job to organise the sessions and to a certain extent be the grown up in the room. This is me not being that.” The result is a trans-continental record of African beats and electronic music that exists in its own world, and only for itself.
Continuing about lead single Made It Weird, he says: "Open Mike Eagle was on my dream list of collaborators but I didn’t think he’d do it. His flow is ridiculously clever and smooth. I’ve been a fan of his for ages. Once he was convinced to come to Topanga we just hung out, listened to records and I played him the beat and he took it away. And then this happened. He makes it sound so so easy but he’s doing some mad shit in there. This beat is the only sample on the record. It’s from Francis Lai, Young Freedom.
The video was made by Jackie Radinsky. I’d seen and loved his documentaries on Daedelus and Open Mike Eagle, and he was a friend of a friend. He lived locally so I gave him the track and said do whatever you want. Being a producer and “in charge” most of the time, I love handing over the controls to someone else and letting them just get on with it. It’s really refreshing for me and I get to be excited by the newness of what happens."
Listen to Made It Weird feat. Open Mike Eagle on streaming services HERE
Watch the video for Made It Weird feat. Open Mike Eagle below.
More about the album "The Jacknife Lee"
As well as being one of the most in-demand producers in the game, Garret “Jacknife” Lee has form as an artist. In a past life the Irishman was guitarist in early Nineties New Wave of New Wave combo Compulsion. Then he was a solo artist, under his own name and as Jack Planck. But his last solo joint was in 2007. For a good decade he was busy elsewhere, producing, at a prodigious rate, artists in his Los Angeles studio or on the road. Yet his side-hustle as an obsessive noisemaker never abated. He was always writing, sketching, recording. Always accumulating songs, or bits of songs, or ideas for songs. That’s what you do when you have (a) as encyclopaedic a knowledge of music as Lee does, (b) tastes as globe-rattling diverse as Lee does, and (c) all the attributes of a proper recording studio nut.
Finally, the dam burst. An idea for an album was accumulating. He wanted to combine two of his big sonic loves, African beats and electronics music, and experiment with these alongside artists he loved.
Open Mike Eagle | Download hi-res image HERE
Jacknife Lee - "The Jacknife Lee" album artwork | Download hi-res HERE
Jacknife Lee - "The Jacknife Lee" tracklisting
1. Flutter feat. Genesis Owusu
2. I’m Getting Tired feat. Earl St Clair and Beth Ditto
3. What Does It Mean?
4. Hit The Bell feat. Sneaks & Haviah Mighty
5. Hell
6. Firewalls feat. Petite Noir
7. Sisa Wabaya feat. Muthoni Drummer Queen
8. The Studio feat. Bibi Bourelly and Barny Fletcher
9. I Gave You Everything feat. Aloe Blacc
10. That’s What All Boy Do feat. Bibi Bourelly
11. Wawa
12. Made It Weird feat. Open Mike Eagle
13. Flow