The Pacific Northwest has all the luck. It seems places like Seattle and Portland have no shortage of stereotype-breaking artists and musicians. While no longer the home of mainstream-changing musical movements, the gray-green post-yuppie Mecca of modern music continues to draw in likeminded young Americans who need some community or inspiration or freedom from corporate McDonaldization. I've been to Seattle, even the McDonalds aren't McDonaldized.
Jesse Sykes is one of those musicians who up and left her East Coast world after a divorce and headed West in hope of change and prosperity, like so many prospectors in forgotten eras. Once in Seattle she came across former Whiskeytown musician Phil Wandscher and the two began making beautiful music together, definitely literally if not figuratively. A few more musical additions and Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter was born, releasing their debut album, Reckless Burning, on Burn Burn Burn and Barsuk records.
Sykes' search for a place to call home is explored throughout Reckless Burning. Equal parts wanderlust, homesickness, and the Americana sense of belonging anywhere within the lower 48, Reckless Burning is a dark country/folk album drawing immediate comparisons to Cowboy Junkies and Emmylou Harris. Sykes' alto crooning resembles the melancholy-noir of Cat Power. Each word sung reverberates with feelings of loneliness and a desire for community, a longing shared by and found in the western music of the Sweet Hereafter.
It would seem as if the vagabond lifestyle of Seattle is not enough to make Jesse Sykes feel at home, no matter how much the weather or landscape mirror her feelings of the blues. "Lonely Still" and "Drinking with Strangers" are more than Sykes' sense of longing, they seem to capture in song the spirit of a nation confused as to whether this is the country we grew up calling home.
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Similar sounding releases
2004Justin Rutledge and the Junction FortyNo Never Alone
2003TimesboldTimesbold
2002Rosie ThomasWhen We Were Small
2001Royal CityAlone at the Microphone
2005Frank LenzConquest Slaughter
1998Pinetop SevenNo Breath in the Bellows
