Jandek

Jandek is a project by a man with no name, or may I say an artist who won't reveal his name. He's an outsider artist who's made over thirty five albums now which consist of weird folkiness and avant trash from the psychedelic gardens of a schizophrenic's mind. Allot of the albums consist of him playing in out of tune guitars singing with his ghost-like vocals and random drum banging. It's nowhere near easy listening music or pleasent, but that's the exciting thing about it. This is music made to bring an uncomfortable feeling to the listener.

The man behind Jandek says himself that he really doesn't know what he's doing, so everything he creates is more of a vision. All the songs are recorded in a lo-fi manner so the music feels like it's coming from a garage or echoing out from a dark tunnel, which fits perfect with the style of the music. One minute he goes from being completely melodic and the next he brings in a noisy electric guitar over completely strange lyrics.

Allot of people kind of just say, "Well, I could make this type of music. Hand me an acoustic guitar and I'll sing some creepy shit over the microphone". The thing is that you probably wouldn't be able to match his level of creepiness. I really feel like this guy knows how to turn something that others would sound ugly and trashy into something beautiful or disturbing.

There's only a few times he's actually played live. The first time I think was about eight years ago. He's been making music for more than twenty years, so you can guess that he's not someone that likes to be seen much. When listening to his music, you would guess that he probably isn't that type of social person. There's allot of his albums that I could call some of the most depressing albums I've ever heard (Put My Dream On This Planet for example), so I'm guessing he's got some forms of issues.

If you're looking for something really strange keeps the neighbors away, then this is teh perfect music for you. This is the soundtrack to a madman in the corner of a small white room of a mental hospital.

Recommended albums to start with: Chair Beside A Window, Glad To Get Away, Modern Dances (Really strange), and Graven Image.