Jandek

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

The New Wave allowed solitary and fiercely independent musicians to find an audience. Such is the case with Jandek (Sterling Smith), in Texas, who released over 30 albums between 1978 and 2000.

Sterling Smith, whose albums are credited to Jandek and released on his own label (Corwood), is a fiercely independent musician from Houston. Alternating fully solo acoustic works with electric pieces featuring a singer and band, Jandek composed a work of monumental scope, doing so solely to satisfy his own internal need, without being at all influenced by the (nonexistent) attention of critics or the public. This chronic case of solipsism is expressed in a limited number of registers: a very primitive blues idiom, surreal folk accompanied by random guitar chords, and angelic psychedelia with Buckley-like chanting.

His discography opens with Ready For This House (Corwood, 1978 – Corwood, 1999), an album for voice and acoustic guitar credited to the phantom Units, and with Six And Six (Corwood, 1981 – Six And Six (Corwood Industries, 2009), a difficult and certainly unmelodic album compared to the later ones, featuring the ten-minute I Knew You Would Leave, the equivalent of Neil Young’s Last Trip To Tulsa.

The astonishing prolificacy of the artist begins with Later On (Corwood, 1981), another spartan album, and explodes with Chair Besides A Window (Corwood, 1982), which contains Nancy Sings and a new version of European Jewel. Living In A Moon So Blue (Corwood, 1982) and Staring At The Cellophane (Corwood, 1982) follow, perhaps reaching its peak with Your Turn To Fall (Corwood, 1983). The Rocks Crumble (Corwood, 1983 – Corwood, 2001) is his first electric album. Interstellar Discussion (Corwood, 1984) and Nine Thirty (Corwood, 1985) mark the gradual maturation of the songwriter.

His collection includes many entirely gratuitous tracks, but also some successful reflections: Lost Cause (from Foreign Keys, 1985), You Painted Your Teeth (from Telegraph Melts, 1986), Upon The Grandeur, Yellow Pages, I'll Sit Alone And Think A Lot About You (from On The Way, 1988), Yellow Pages and Ale House Blues (from One Foot In The North, 1991).

The problem is that Jandek continues to release albums en masse, albums that become increasingly bleak and listless: Follow Your Footsteps (Corwood, 1986), Modern Dances (Corwood, 1987), You Walk Alone (Corwood, 1988). The acoustic Blue Corpse (Corwood, 1987) is perhaps the best, or at least the most personal, of this phase (Your Other Man).

The Living End (1989) and Somebody In The Snow (1990 – Corwood Industries, 2003) are relatively simpler and more professional works.

Jandek’s inner monster emerges in the suite The Electric End, twenty minutes of gratuitous noise (from Lost Cause, 1992).

This mythomaniacal cross between Syd Barrett and Blind Lemon Jefferson has found a devoted following despite his work probably being the most scattershot ever.