Ohio songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Jrdfllrmn pulls back the curtain on his sprawling debut album, ‘albatross’.
We already had a taste of Jrdfllrmn’s greatness with his standout indie-pop track, ‘Familiar Face’.
Offering the sonic equivalent of a warm hug, the song crystallises the Ohio musician’s efforts as multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter — all of which he puts on full display with the remaining tracklist of ‘albatross’.
Spanning nine tracks, the debut effort showcases Jrdfllrmn’s distinct sound while retaining the broad appeal of an infectious pop palette, which Jrdfllrmn recently told us “turned out pretty cohesive and meshed decently.”
Reminiscing on his first-ever album, Jrdfllrmn swung by Happy for a track-by-track guide through ‘albatross’, front he process behind “one of the groovier songs on the album” to the track that “that took me quite a while to get right.”
Catch Jrdfllrmn’s full track-by-track below.
‘flow’
“flow” is a song that took me quite a while to get right. I wrote the chord progression/beat after going to a country music-themed night club and noticed that all the dance remixes used the same four-on-the-floor drum pattern, which was the basis for this song.
There were multiple revisions to get the lyrics and melodies right, but I am pretty proud of how it turned out, especially with the chorus melody and the modulations between different sections.
‘hermit’
I first had the idea for this song while sitting at a really cool organ at a local music store and playing the walk-down chord progression that appears toward the end of the track.
Anytime I play an organ, I instantly think of Beach House, which was a huge influence to how I arranged this song to appear on the record.
It’s much more mellow than anything else on the album, and I think the shorter structure is one of the song’s strengths.
‘familiar face’
This is another song that took me quite a few revisions to get right. I had the chord progressions and the song structure figured out from the beginning, but again had to wrestle with different melodies and lyrics to make the song “stick.”
The bassline makes this one of the groovier songs on the album and I think it has the catchiest chorus of all of the tracks, as well.
The synth solo bridge was there from the beginning, and I recall first finding out about unison voicings on synthesizers and knowing I had to end the solo hitting notes on opposite ends of the keyboard. It almost sounds like an alarm clock.
‘nothing!’
The melody to this song popped into my head very late at night on Christmas Eve (not sure why I remember that) and I quickly got to my piano to work out the instrumental structure.
This song is heavily inspired by my bloody valentine’s style of shoegaze, where the vocals are wrapped in all of the instrumentation.
In that same style, I never released the lyrics to the track because I enjoy the idea of listening to a song and having to essentially write your own lyrics based off of what you’re hearing. It makes you listen closer to what’s going on, I think.
‘the messenger’
“the messenger” is the result of me having a ton of distinct musical ideas and figuring out how I could tie them all together. As a result, this is one of the longer and more adventurous songs on the album.
In the end, I think it turned out to be rather cohesive. I’ve always been a fan of songs that have odd structures and weave between different keys, and I think this song pulls it off.
‘powerless’
When I first had the idea for this one, it was like a bouncy piano song that has no semblance to the finished version. I pulled up a stock Mellotron sound and put too many modulation effects on it, which led me to arranging it the way I did on the album.
This is yet another song where it took me many revisions to get it to work. I really love diminished chords, and I used them to connect the two distinct sections of the song together.
This song is another “journey” type song where it starts in one place and takes you somewhere completely different by the end.
The ending of this song features another jam where there was way too much happening for my computer to not crash while working on it.
It was an absolute nightmare to mix and get the precise levels I felt it needed. However, I am very happy with how it turned out.
‘sophomore slump’
This song came about towards the end of me making the album and I wanted to do another “straightforward” song, instead of another odyssey.
The chord progression on this song is one of my very favorites that I have written. I remember setting up the drum machine pattern and building it up part-by-part, then just listening to it over and over until I got the best arrangement and lyrics for the track.
I also liked the idea of having the outro of the song start halfway through the chorus to introduce a new part, which pushed it somewhere new without venturing off of the path it was already on.
‘bridges’
“bridges” was written and recorded in a very short amount of time, after every other song was already fully mixed. I am a very big admirer of how Prince used the drum machine as its own instrument, giving it a very distinct part whenever he used it. That was the main idea going into this song.
I finished it up and hated the first vocal takes I did (which happened very frequently during the recordings of each of these songs), so I quickly did more and finished mixing it like 7 days before I decided to put the album out.
It ended up being another longer song, but I was always eager to experiment with different synth sounds and the atmospheres I could create with them.
‘the world is ending’
I had the piano part and title finalized before anything else on this song was written, oddly enough. The title just felt overdramatic enough to fit the song, so I set about writing the rest of the song from there.
The instrumental that takes the song out was one of the very first things I remember recording for the album, and the entire song was finished before any other songs were.
It was definitely going to be the closer (you can’t have a song called “the world is ending” show up, like, halfway through an album), so I knew it had to end in a massive fashion.
I remember showing it to a friend shortly before I released the album and being told that it was “…bold to end an album with an instrumental.” I’m unsure of how true that is, but it definitely felt like the best way to end the album.
