The Hermit by Jason McInnes

Available Exclusively through Bandcamp

ABOUT THIS ALBUM
(Click on each song to learn their individual stories.)
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The Hermit chronicles a journey. These instrumentals, played on acoustic guitar, banjo and other acoustic instruments, combined with poetry and accompanying artwork expresses a stepping away from an established, but unstable and consumptive, life path onto the ultimately more stable, yet unknowable trail of accepted impermanence.

The songs of The Hermit lend themselves to the labels “folk music, “old time” or “americana” due to their use of acoustic instruments and their composition within the United States. No matter how they are classified, these recordings are deliberately imperfect, or some might say “human”.

A listener will hear skipped beats and missteps along a melody line, raindrops pinging the tin roof of my makeshift recording studio, bees buzzing around the microphone, and semi-trucks barrelling down an expressway cutting across the Chihuahuan Desert. The songs of The Hermit allow open-hearted, curious listeners space for expansive reflection. They venerate the flawed nature of life being lived.

In 2019, almost 25 years since I arrived to Chicago at age 18, I had everything I could dream of; an adventurous, creative life in a world class city, work I was passionate about, surrounded by friends, colleagues and a deep, loving community. But, a darkness had been steadily encroaching on this life. I had become tired and scared. It became increasingly clear, during fleeting moments of introspection, that this cherished life could not be maintained and was perhaps crumbling to pieces more quickly than career successes and nights out on the town portrayed. Out of desperation, I relinquished my routines and profession, city and community. Here I was, burdened only by my own thoughts; exposed and alone for the first time in decades, perhaps for the first time in life.

Most of the music on The Hermit was recorded just outside La Cueva rock shelter at the foot of the Organ Mountains; the one-time home of the Italian-born mystic and healer Giovanni de Agostini. Music that was not recorded at La Cuerva was collected at familiar locations of my journey such as the ice-ridged beach of a crashing Lake Superior, a clearing along the lapping Rio Grande, and a dust-blown a rest area on Interstate 25. These locations were chosen to glean the thoughts, feelings, tempo, and whereabouts that inspired me to compose much of this music.

Once a music school dropout, Jason spent 25 years in Chicago cultivating, and ultimately relinquishing, an adventurous, creative life. In 2020 he settled in New Mexico near La Cuerva, the one-time home of the Italian-born mystic and healer Giovanni de Agostini

Exposed, alone, and burdened only by his own thoughts, he returned to his guitar, banjo, and harmonica to compose the music of The Hermit.

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