Memphis is a city with a prestigious musical history, much of which has been carried down the Mississippi River to influence popular music globally. This is a lot of pressure for upcoming Memphis artists to bear, but one such artist confidently putting his city on his back is singer Jon Waltz, who has dropped his new single and video, “Trainwreck”, featuring Canadian artist verzache. The song is an ode to bouncing back from any beating life has to distribute to you, a message unfortunately prescient to every single era of human history.
Waltz’s sound takes comprehensive liner notes from Memphis’ vast library of source material, a warm, fuzzy blues riff leading the track on a journey all the way up to modern R&B and bedroom pop textures. Think Frank Ocean on a steamboat with Howlin’ Wolf, while bloggers document the whole thing on livestream. Jon Waltz’s voice has the rich, dreamy tone so fervently sought after in the age of lo-fi, the perfect antidote to a world which screams its instructions at you the second you step outside. The track encourages us to slow down, take stock and recognise our powers of endurance, and even the most embittered cynic couldn’t help but feel empowered in some way, so I’ve heard.
The video shares the lo-fi, retro aesthetic, with a minimalist clip framed by three slightly different camera shots showing Jon washing jeans on an industrial scale, peeling a satsuma and finally getting his head shaved down to the bone and emerging from his hazy chrysalis with a fresh perspective. I believe Waltz is merely using his bald head as a metaphor in this piece, not suggesting a buzzcut as an instant solution to deeply entrenched feelings of ennui.
“Trainwreck” is the perfect antidote to most ‘positive message’ songs, which usually shriek their motivational message at you while an overproduced synth prods you in the temples. Jon Waltz has opted for the laid-back approach, and it is far more palatable. Hopefully the fine balancing act he has pulled off here will extend to the other tracks on his forthcoming EP, My Golden Horse, released on March 23. If the mellow tones continue through the release, it will definitely have me pining for the British summer, all 3 weeks of it. You can buy “Trainwreck” here.
