alt-J’s Joe Newman aka JJerome87 Releases Debut Album The Canyon

Into a cinematic world of fantastical vignettes and deep, simple humanity; dusty, Motown-influenced Americana and a curious, British mind comes The Canyon: the debut solo album from JJerome87, out today on Mushroom Music / Virgin Music Group.
 

JJerome87 is the pen name of Joe Newman, best known as vocalist and chief songwriter of the Mercury Prize and Ivor Novello-winning trio alt-J who, over four albums, have topped the UK charts and entered the Billboard Top Five, earning multiple Grammy and Brit nominations and billions of streams whilst becoming one of the last decade’s most successful bands on both sides of the Atlantic. Where the specific alchemy of alt-J has always been rooted in the unlikely confluence of three different tastes, Newman’s current project is an exercise in showing new sides of himself – digging back to the influences that have energized him since his childhood, and weaving them into experiences taken from the most transformative time in his life to date.
 
Featuring the singles ‘Brush Me Like A Horse’, ‘Track And Field’, ‘Mr Alligator’ and today’s focus track, ‘Green Velvet’, the album was recorded in Los Angeles, co-produced by Joe with Carlos de la Garza, featuring a handpicked group of the city’s top session musicians alongside a trio of female backing vocalists.
  
Where the specific alchemy of alt-J has always been rooted in the unlikely confluence of three different tastes, Newman’s current project is an exercise in showing new sides of himself – digging back to the influences that have energized him since his childhood, and weaving them into experiences taken from the most transformative time in his life to date.
 
“Traditionally after finishing an album, I’m creatively a bit depleted so I’ll take a break. But after [2022’s] ‘The Dream’ Ididn’t stop writing, and I started formulating a lot of ideas that were very personal: things I was experiencing as a first time dad, and the core memories of my partner giving birth,” Newman explains. “I was beginning to realize this might be a good time for me to take a leap of faith and write something outside the circle of alt-J.”
 
Newman and his partner’s daughter was born in 2021. It’s her who is peeking over the corner of the musician’s shoulder in the artwork for The Canyon – rendered by the artist Sally Dunne, and full of clues as to what’s inside. There’s the white house in the corner where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote the script for Good Will Hunting – a local landmark near the studio where the album was recorded. There are the coyotes that Newman encountered on a 5am drive one morning. The Canyon itself is a nod to one of the regular haunts that they’d visit during recording, Echo Park’s famous Canyon Coffee. 
 
Across The Canyon, Newman weaves strange and sublime stories, turning everyday moments into something cinematic and unforgettable. The record unfolds like a collection of musical short stories — brief, vivid snapshots where fact and fiction blur. It’s an intimate, adventurous album from a songwriter stepping confidently into a new chapter of his life, with his daughter by his side and the coyotes of Echo Park keeping watch over the musical landscape he’s created.
 
Having performed a headline show to a sold-out crowd at London’s Bush Hall last night — with support from Imogen and the Knife — JJerome87 recently announced his first New York headline show at the iconic Bowery Ballroom this October.