Nashville’s Jess Kerber first picked up a guitar at the age of 12, and her precocious drive to experiment with different tunings and picking styles – influenced by kindred spirits like Joni Mitchell and Susan Tedeschi – led to the development of a unique sonic palette and authentic, personal approach to songwriting. Inspired equally by her upbringing in Louisiana and studies at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, debut album From Way Down Here highlights the dynamism and depth of her gorgeous voice and thoughtful, humanistic lyrics, as well as the refined intricacy of her guitar playing.
While developing many of these compositions at early live performances in and around Boston and Cambridge, Kerber encountered fellow songwriter Will Orchard, who quickly became a partner and collaborator in the genesis of their recording. Orchard’s production prowess and multi-instrumental talents push Kerber’s arrangements to a new level of fullness, while retaining the disarming purity and emotion of the main elements, in a dynamic akin to that of renowned contemporaries Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Nodding to the traditions of Americana, the two artists – along with mixing engineer Charlie Dahlke of The Brazen Youth – have created their own subgenre that is at once intimate and universal, comforting and raw. Across the album, Kerber’s rich, velvety tenor assumes a deep tenderness and warmth, while varying arrangements of pedal steel, Wurlitzer, drums, and ambient guitar create the surrounding shimmer.
The influence of her upbringing – and what she lovingly calls the “way apart from the rest of the world feeling” of the Deep South – shines through in the honest, straightforward, and timeless qualities of her composition. About her process, Kerber notes, “The most important thing is to lean into intuition, and when I was working with Will on these songs, it was so much fun that I almost forgot we were making a record.” Fittingly, From Way Down Here is the rare debut that shows all the fully-formed hallmarks of a seasoned songwriter, and across its varied environments, she constructs a compelling world of raw beauty and truth, whose spell remains long after the final notes fade.
