Blake Mills :: “Jelly Road” - New Deal Music/Verve Forecast
“Speak to me in breadcrumbs, speak to me in code, tell me it again about the Jelly Road”
Photo: Gabi Zecchetto
Without sparing any comprises within the cosmic void of both the virtuosic volume and the otherworldly approach he has to his craft, LA-based master musician of melody, Blake Mills, has been nothing short of being a stellar student in the school of sound for nearly two decades, since establishing the Simon Dawes outfit in the mid 2000s with close friend and bandmate, Taylor Goldsmith of the now famously familiar band, Dawes. With folks like Jackson Browne acknowledging his unparalleled, prodigy-like talents as being from out of this world, Mills has become a hybrid household name in the realms of music as well as a renowned producer, which is an entirely different conversation all together. Manifesting the ever-changing moments and motions of being a musician eagerly migrating the merciless galaxy for inspiration and epic subjects, Mills provides rich colors to the otherwise sepia-tone world of sound and texture, by demonstrating a flawless flow of steady rhythm and calculated choruses like no other.
Photo: Gabi Zecchetto
With the release of his culturally adorned 2010 debut, “Break Mirrors”, which has since been cast into the debilitating depths of pirate politics regarding its increasing rarity, Mills took his time when returning to the studio for his harrowing follow-up, “Heigh Ho”, back in 2014. A feature in our society that isn’t taken lightly these days, the dynamics of the musician’s dormancy from consistent output only increased his atmospheric abilities to conjure, capture and securely calcify the sonically sacred elements from the unending dimensions of complete lawlessness during his pursuit for ultimate creativity. With an ever expanding career working with the likes of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, Jack Johnson and countless others, Mills has secured himself as a pinnacle figure in the cosmos of contemporary greats by bridging the distanceless gap between past, present and future, while eagerly connecting multiple generations with the ultimate form of human communication. Unleashing an incredible continuation of spirited works over the years that features such titles as the photography book/soundtrack collaboration with Sam Jones entitled “Some Where Else”, the vintage visuals of 2018’s “Look”, “Mutable Set”, “Notes With Attachments” - ft. Pino Palladino and the slumbering reaches of last summer’s “Jelly Road”, Mills has fully cashed in on the melodic currency by entering a sort of retro Renaissance that was vastly designed for greatness and eager expression.
The album’s feverish narrative of soothing sensations and singular sensitivity to the appetite of the full moon, predicts this sprawling decoration of both iconic instrumentation and the volcanic vocabulary of Mills’ fictitious frontier of people, places and things. A theme that dates back to the spring of 2019, Mills called on Chris Weisman to help germinate the galactic grounds of what would soon become the swelling seeds of “Jelly Road” in all its glory. Joined by a widely talented assembled of musicians such as Gabi Zachetto, Wendy Melvoin — daughter of legendary composer Mike Melvoin, multi-instrumentalist Sam Gendel and a few others, the album immediately begins to take shape filling its humble frame with a mirage of perfected melody and gardens filled with laborious fruits. Possessing illusive instruments such as Hammond C3s and a Roland Juno-106, “Jelly Road” unfolds into this pastel portrait of controlled chaos where an echoing economy of reverberating riches stands the test of time. With numbers like “Skeleton Is Walking”, the album’s industrious opener “Suchlike Horses” and “There Is No Now”, which was conceived via lyrics loosely summoned on the spot as well as its macabre melody, Mills and Weisman conquer a landscape of mostly holy mountains, endless hills and virtual valleys while coming out the other side soulfully unscathed with an atmospheric artifact that sincerely radiates this romantic gesture into the volume-less void for all to see, hear and feel.
