28 May 2021
Jessica Ackerley is a musician whose artistic pursuits are relentless. The Canadian-born guitarist spent the last several years in New York City, tearing down musical boundaries as a member of experimental bands like Prima, Gold Dime, Jazz Bras Dot Com, and ESSi, and even found time to record some inventive, skronky jazz combo solo albums,
Coalesce (2017) and
A New Kind of Water (2019). In 2020, she released collaborations with Uruguayan guitarist Federico Musso and Los Angeles-based saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi. Earlier this year, Ackerley relocated to Hawaii, but not before recording her first true full-length solo album,
While she doesn’t have any other musicians backing her up on this new album, there’s plenty of outside inspiration that brought these compositions and recordings to life. Two of her greatest mentors, guitarists Vic Juris and Bobby Cairns, passed away over the last couple of years, the latter from COVID-19. As a way of dealing with these tremendous losses, Ackerley set out to pay tribute with her guitar. In an interesting twist, she was forced to self-isolate in a friend’s vacant apartment just after Christmas 2020 due to a COVID-related precaution. Under these unusual circumstances, Ackerley was able to confront the emotional impact of her losses and as a result, recorded an album of profound and unique beauty.