Jeff Unfortunately

I’ve been absorbing the ramshackle ramble of Jeff Unfortunatlely’s new record for a few weeks now and it’s a perfect late afternoon companion. Just about the time the Summer swelter starts to creep in under the skin, turning gravity into gravy and sticking your legs to any surface they’re sweating; that’s the time when Bridge Over Troubled Flowers truly shines. The album is the latest in a line of solo stints from Jeffrey Gallagher, principle songwriter in Northeastern faves Bridge of Flowers. With the soul of Michael Hurley, Kevin Ayers, and Akron/Family in its bones, the new record has a wonderful wobble to it. Floating out of the speakers like a fever dream, the record works its way from strums to harmonies circling the edge of hooks, garbled snippets of interstellar radio static, and stream of consciousness tributaries that carry the listener somewhere between dream and delirium.

While the album is rooted in several layers of psych-folk tradition, it feels most aligned with the ’04/’05 resurgence that took root in the CD-r bloom of the early aughts. There’s a sense of freedom that adorned that particular strain, emboldened by home recording’s price point drop and the ease and access of a bedroom to headphone pipeline for the fans. The album echoes around the headspace, chewing on the traditions of folk and Americana, at one point turning “Amazing Grace” into the kind of gooey psychedelics that would have befit a Vanishing Voice album. There’s an unhurried air, an amble that feels necessary in a life that constantly gobbling time in hungry helpings. Jeff Unfortunately seeks to slow the seep, at least temporarily, serving up two minute calls to the cosmos that freeze the frayed ends of our own inner unraveling, at least for a moment.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.