The track is part of the artist’s celebrated new LP Wait, Sky
With the release of his brand new album Wait, Sky, Jesse Blake Rundle has continued to demonstrate the thoughtful and layered nature of his distinctive alternative rock sound, delving into a range of sonic territories and moods as he explores themes of identity, transformation, and inner conflict with a level of nuance and charm that makes for compelling listening. The creation of the album took shape during an artist residency in the Washington rainforest and was completed at Mixed Metaphor Studios in Boise, Idaho
A track that encapsulates the range and depth of the album is ‘Knife’, a stripped-back and emotionally rousing track that serves as the emotional crux of the album, exploring themes like grief and breakups in a way that feels steeped in heart and authenticity. This narrative, when compounded by the raw and minimal nature of the sound, makes for a listening experience that conjures an intense amount of emotion throughout, like the lack of production and sparsity of the arrangement gives Jesse nowhere to hide, and it makes for a truly resonating and affecting piece of work as a result, not dissimilar to the atmosphere created on Radiohead’s ‘Exit Music (For a Film)’
The album and track’s emotional core was forged in solitude and reflection during the aforementioned Rockland residency. “The first day of that residency I wrote ‘Knife.’ I woke up and was reviewing an old voice memo of a guitar part I’d discarded… I had gone through an intense breakup a couple months before. That relationship had taught me a lot and brought me a lot of heartbreak… And I was reading Simone De Beauvoir and she was saying animals can’t grieve and I was testing that idea out with the rest of the residents and no one believed her. So that’s how the bird got into the song.”
