4/5
Moon Knight.
Springsteen, Dylan, Young. Ben Harper. From legends to contemporaries, the great American singer/songwriters have always had a protest song or two in their back pocket. But how about the great Jack Johnson? Streaming across our airwaves and Spotify playlists steady, like the tide coming in to our feet on a beautiful Hawaiian beach. His form more in the mood of a peaceful calm surrounding us. Lulling us into a rocking boat reverie that doesn't feel like malaise, but more a meandering path to great resistance. Ever since he came to us 'In Between Dreams' with his 2005 break-out like footprints in the sand. He's been our balm of calm in a mad world. Even though his 2001 debut 'Brushfire Fairytales' (who would have thought back then in February, how much we would have needed him that year?) and it's follow-up 'On and On' was what first introduced us to his indelible inspiration in an ignorant world. His peaceful protest has just been that much more subtle. But we still need it on the surf like we need the shaggy shades of Bob. Here's a guy that asked why newsmen don't shed a tear when reading 'The News', made records with inquisitive primates ('Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the film Curious George; (including the reduce, reuse, recycle anthem 'The 3 R's)) and always took his wife and kids on tour with him. 'From Here to Now to You' always setting the most beautiful example as we 'Sleep Through The Static', all the way to the sea. Now after a half-decade, following 2017's 'All The Light Above It Too', Jack's back as it's time to 'Meet The Moonlight', five-years later. And so much greater.
Better together, forever, for our worse times. Johnson is music's most meaningful like the ever hard-working Norah Jones. His bare-feet in the sand just as important as the bootcut, blue collar work of The Boss. Get the Grammy ready for one of the greatest of our generation. He needs to be part of the conversation. No longer sitting, waiting, or wishing. Just reminiscing, like we do on all the greats, before he shows us what's next. Coming out of the paradise cage of his hiatus, Johnson takes 'One Step Ahead' with critically acclaimed producer Blake Mills of collaborative fame featuring of course Dylan, Fiona Apple and artist of our moment Phoebe Bridgers' (her Glasto protest put her United States on blast) 2020 (has it really been two years. Well...because the pandemic) album 'Punisher'. On Mills, Johnson told Rolling Stone, "When Blake and I first got in touch we’d send each other playlists, and over time we realized we were drawn to music that sounds effortless despite all the effort put into making it." Now could you think of a quotable that actually encapsulates Jack's music better than this? The brush of this artists fairytale fire. This lead single communicates a message these days of how we receive our information through social channels. Another form of protest for the record. Slowing down to a calming crawl on the chorus that breathing through the noise, Jack tells us is the listener trying to find that same calm we talked about. Singing, "When it feels like it's all closing in, mmm/All the linеs we won't cross, we bend instеad/Never mind all the noise going through your head, oh/'Cause every time we talk, we say the same things that we say/'Cause you never mind all the noise going through your head." Although the rest of this record and the Blake assisted album as a whole is on a new up-tempo groove from the laid-back warriors usual fare. 'Ahead' takes us further.
'Moonlight' is as subtly powerful as Mahershala Ali in the Barry Jenkins movie of the same name. Mills (who recently rocked with The Black Keys) and Johnson gives us some alarm-clock music that shakes like Alabama with '3Am Radio'. But on 'Calm Down', the Hawaiian lullaby dream sings, "Sirens sing from far away/Charm the wind and wonder why you’ve/Been so lost, been so long/Been too many things gone wrong and/How low until the bottom?/Echo, echo, echo, echo, then you let go" in hallowed harmony. 'Meet The Moonlight's' title-track is as beautiful as the album artwork in black and white, where you can see the stars from the shores. Whilst 'Don't Look Now' will really prick up your ears. Songbook adding lavish lyrics like, "Come on, wake up, how late were you up?/Late enough to see the sun/I know that we're turning, but it feels like it's rising/It doesn't really matter which one/To know that I feel things or feel like I know things/Or sing like no tomorrow comes/But it comes like a thief in the night/Look for what's left in the light/If you steal it, you're goin' to have to deal with the light when it's gone." There's work hidden in these wonderful lines. Urging you to reach for more and understand that this singer does, even swinging between trees in a roped-up bed. It's not a masquerade, but 'Costume Party' will really reveal the world we live in behind the mask. All before 'I Tend To Digress' shows us what Jack Johnson is really all about. "But I want meaning I want reason/It’s not enough to have a pleasing morning/Listening to birds sing songs about getting their money’s worth/Or the earth beneath the cement/Beneath the chair I’m sitting in/Under the roof over my head/Under a sky that’s turning red/Under the stars, begin to shine/As I become unstuck in time/Waking up in strange places/Chasing good conversations with my friends/Where’d my mind go? With my friends/What do I know?/I tend to digress from time to time." If only we truly understood the multitudes this man's music contains as his 'Windblown Eyes' soothe us like the breeze through the palms that feels like a higher power reaching. Is it 'Any Wonder' like the classic closer, that in this time of planet pandemics and unjust states of a world we thought united, we've forgotten ourselves, and Jack too? Well now it's time to get reacquainted and acclimated. With this beautiful 'Moonlight', you need to know Jack again and his wonderful world. Get ready to meet him. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'One Step Ahead', '3AM Radio', 'Windblown Eyes'.
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