Jangly folk music performed in an uplifting manner will always be a hit and “Nomad Exquisite” is no exception. Accompanied by a cinematic landscape lyric video Jesse Blake Rundle really bring an organic performance in a way that is easy to love and heartfelt. It is the first single from Radishes and Flowers due out February 2020 and it seems like a great time for this release because how tender it is makes seem like it’ll fit right around Valentines Day, I mean c’mon the lyrics are an adaptation of a poem by Wallace Stevens. It fits in with a younger philosophical crowd who’ve all ready Emerson and Thoreau. Stream out “Nomad Exquisite below and find a lengthy explanation on Jesse Blake Rundles writing process for Radishes and Flowers out February 2020.
From the Artist on their new record out 2020
“BOISE, IDAHO — Jesse Blake Rundle will release his debut, Radishes and Flowers, in February 2020. It features the poetry of Wallace Stevens’ Harmonium arranged as a song cycle in an indie folk setting. The 12-track album was recorded at Mixed Metaphor Studios in Boise, Idaho with engineer Nate Agenbroad.
Rundle is a self taught musician and singer that plays guitar in unconventional tunings which results in an idiosyncratic style. He plays nearly all the instrumental parts on the album and brings in a few friends for help with horns, woodwinds, and percussion. While the album tends towards an acoustic atmosphere, plenty of influences are intermixed that explore the edges of the folk rock tradition. Classic analog synths like the Jupiter 8 and MiniMoog and many organs show up throughout the songs.
The arrangements have an exuberant energy that follows the shape of poetry with care and precision. The song structures are at times unconventional to pop music while still developing motifs and interlocking melodic and rhythmic patterns.
The opener, “Nomad Exquisite”, is an anthemic folk tune that lunges with guitars and quarter-note tambourines into the scene of everglades and then sits for a while to reflect while the swampy synths swell around the tune until it erupts again. Rundle often blends various organs tones with acoustic and electric guitars to create the spacious and grand nature of an orchestral arrangement. Or, as in the 60’s pop inspired “Emperor of Ice Cream”, the jumpy ice-cream-truck organ tone drives with an undeniable beat that erupts into a roomful of chaos at the end.
The album revels in the images of the poems and what’s to be found there: how green everything is in Florida; Captain Profundo imagining a drink of orangeade; a cat charging across the plains of Oklahoma; a lamp shining a light on death. The title track opens with a deceptively simple chamber arrangement for four guitars while a relaxed vocal part sings the story of Ursula and the story of a forgotten saint. But then the book closes, opens again, and the song explodes into indie-rock fanfare, exposing his 90s upbringing but with a fresh approach.
The album artwork was created by Boise artist Ryan Hadden who added a visual reading of the poems to the musical reading contained in the songs. The poems in Harmonium were first published in 1923 and entered the public domain in 2019 and both the art and poems will be available as a booklet as a part of the vinyl edition.
Rundle can be found working on several new music projects, writing poetry, and strumming his guitar on the front stoop.”
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