Jerry Arlen has been exploring the avant-garde space for decades now. The musician has been responsible for creating music that not only he enjoys, but becomes an immersive, almost theatrical process. His latest album comes after the 2018 collection called The College Scores. Call this escapism, because we’re departing to different worlds in search for better. This one is called Luna I.
Taking you places
I won’t keep you waiting, for Jerry Arlen starts with #Liftoff. It is an industrial sound he captures while having layers of atmospheric electronica and jazzy notes to discombobulate you from the moment. Percussion takes over for the kind of fills it creates. The tempo change is carried by a guitar lead which aims to develop the fuel that burns during liftoff, a chaotic implication of the travel that is to come. Trap beats will engulf you in the capsule you’re contained in, electronica notes still highlighting the style of the song. No genre assigned yet; this flight path is going to a blindfold in space.
I enjoyed the variety we get to listen to when you reach Say it Anyway. A funky number with familiar melodic lines, you get to listen to incredible musicality as the best foot forward. Vocals are powerful, adding to the dramatic infusion of this song, along with Jerry Arlen giving us a treat of instrumental brilliance. I was blown away with ComeBackAround as well; now having a gothic tinge along with a piano tone, I have to steal. Through this album, there is a genre-based fluidity that Jerry is able to capture in terms of the journey and tone. If you’re given a bit too much electronica, live instruments and vocals break it down.
The songwriting process
This is mature songwriting that you’re hearing as a singular album experience. Arlen isn’t waiting for your comprehension of personal experience of this album; you’re in his space shuttle, and you return back to it for the rest of the journey. While also being able to have controls on production, the quality of output that you hear surpasses experiential listening by lightyears. Luna I is his opus for sure, before the next one comes and he can take us to another nook in his brain. Jerry Arlen has waited for inspiration in music to strike – and when it has, he has made a cohesive musical journey you can listen to repeatedly.
An epic anthem like The Long Drift Thru Space is a song I returned to thrice. There’s a reason for this: I am allowed to be engulfed in my own thoughts for the majority of the song. If the planet gave you an experience prior, you’re now looking at it in retrospect. The universe remains largely unobserved – but if you’re a curious mind like Jerry Arlen, it’s only a matter of time before we reach there:
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