Foto © Norman Tebel

Die EP Five Stones war das letzte musikalische Lebenszeichen von Jonas David (also Solokünstler). Nebenbei war er natürlich nicht untätig, tourte z.B. mit seinen Freunde als Tour of Tours durch die deutschen Lande. Nun veröffentlicht am heutigen Freitag sein neues Album Goliath. Für uns hat er sich Zeit genommen und ein ausführliches Track by Track geschrieben.

STACLES

This is it, breathe in, breathe out. A warm wake up, a gentle but big “Here I am”. This sounds like a start to me, like an opening. Sleeping on an hard drive for some years I always felt this is a heavy one that sounds light. One of the last songs I finished, though. I had all this elaborate vocal melodies for the first verse but ended up just saying how things are, with tears in my eye, at 7.30 in the morning.

SCARI

Sometimes I tend to write music for much bigger stages than I play on. This is one of them, clearly made for a big band in front of 10.000 people on a festival. I was not brave enough to repeat the chorus one more time, though. I can’t tell if the song sounds sad to people or not. To me it sounds happy as fuck but holds a sad story. Some the shaker sounds are just tiny pasta by the way.

Every___Thing

This was probably the song that was recorded the fastest. Most of it just happened in one night. Somehow I had the idea to mix things up in the last part, but was not sure how. During the time in Sicily we listened to ‘ÄTNA’ while eating and they gave me the last inspirational push to do the last part how it turned out now. Somehow I have to think about Kate Bush when I hear the intro.

SORRI

When I improvise on chords I usually sing in a fantasy language that contains mostly more or less real words. In this case the demo contained a lot of real sentences that ended up to be the very intimate lyrics about emotional overload.
After the first part I did not feel like writing another verse, because I felt like everything was already said and I was searching for something that “sings” in a different way. So I asked Salvo Scucess to improvise a verse with clarinette and this wonderful human being put everything in there I was looking for on an emotional level. This is a song where I tried to use instruments like words, telling a story with language.

Wait, boy

This was a skit that I improvised. Guitar and vocals were recorded at the same time and later we experimented with a reel to reel recorder. The studio owner Puma explained to me in one of those sicilian nights how much of a dreamer he is and how he thinks that I am one, too. The skit was already recorded then, but I did not plan to use it at all. When he was talking to me about that, I changed my mind and used a voice message of him at the beginning and the end to dedicate the song to us dreamers.

Be Kind

I wish everyone could hear how many tracks of vibraphone Salvo Scucess recorded on the end part. This was a sleeping giant as well, a very old idea that I had so much respect to finish that I never touched it again. But the missing parts came so easily in the process that I don’t understand the issue anymore. When I wrote “Be known to be kind” I swear my sarcastic nose did smell a little bit of cheese. But its true. I want to be known to be kind. And so should you.

SOCIAL BIRDS

On a sunny morning on tour we had breakfast and there were little sparrows getting on the table to steal bits and pieces. My sicilian brother Davide, who was playing with me at that time was totally baffled to the core of his island bones and said: “Unbelievable, we have birds in sicily, but no social birds”. The song is not really about birds, though. It was hard to find drums to this. Milo came from Messina to record for me and he only speaks thicc sicilian. I had trouble to explain what I was searching for, but I could feel he felt that. And he was searching, too. And out of a sudden he started to play this minimal beat while I was circling the drum set like a nervous tiger. I won’t forget that moment. I have never been touched emotionally by a drum beat before that.

Would You, I

Another song that I improvised and recorded with guitar and voice at the same time. It had almost completely finished lyrics in the demo, but I decided to re-recorded it. In most cases that process just hurts, because first takes are usually more magical and as soon as you know what you are doing its over. The demo will be released on my patreon, though. This is about the demands we have sometimes and questioning if we would meet them ourselves.

TOMORRNINGS

I got a four track tape recorder and the first thing I recorded was this piece. Even though it is a short and more simple piece there is something haunting in it that would not let me forget it. At one point I wanted to sing “tomorrow” and thought about “mornings” so “Tomorrnings” came out of my mouth. I found that beautiful, so it stayed. Being someone who can have a constant mess and circus in his head, this is about when things calm and clear up. When your breath normalizes and the air freshens up. We recorded it back in the computer and just added a little bit.

All in All in All

This used to be an high energy and electronic idea that was lying around and went through a few different styles because I tried to combine two ideas that were different from each other. This was the last fight for this record, because I decided to record it on my piano at home while singing at the same time. The beat was made with pedal sounds of the piano. The song is about a horse, chicken and the pain of losing your hair, I guess. And I love reprises, I don’t care what anybody thinks.

Boy Gone

This one made a musical evolution that was interesting and painful at the same time. It had a different vocal melody for years and I thought it was beautiful. But it was also a little bit bad. But when you listen to that demo 2 million times, your brain is almost incapable of thinking about something else. Unless you have a bigger brain. I really don’t have one and so it was a fight to change things up. A few songs on Goliath were finished to a point that only the vocals were missing and in one painful week I stayed awake until the sun came up again and birds would ruin the recordings. But exactly then I wrote and recorded the vocals to this. The song is about parting with something you learned and practiced for years. So the story and the actual process share the pain when you have to rethink something you are used to. Except the brass part. That was fun and no real brass was involved.