Alone, or with his all-star band Jack N’ Em (Max Schrayer - bass; Jake Lee - drumming; Finn Geiger; guitars), Californian songwriter Jack Medina makes music the way a bird feeds its young: instinctively, selflessly, and with an animal-true sense of purpose.  His songs are ambitious, tuneful, freewheeling tapestries that evoke Arthur Russel’s shattered classicism; David Berman’s preternatural realism, and Neil Young’s yearning melodicism.  But Jack transcends these comparisons. He is a transmitter, a primary document, a one-of-one who creates out of ecstatic necessity and a deep love for music in all its forms.

In their year on the San Luis Obispo brewery/backyard/living room/cafe circuit, Jack and his band have brought something fresh, fun, and urgent to a small scene in desperate need. Their live shows have become a must-see, and now a town’s worth of fans are anxiously anticipating the release of their debut LP this winter.  Recorded this spring/summer in a variety of S.L.O bedrooms and classrooms, the album captures Jack N ‘Em’s swirling phasers, arcing pedal steel, bolt-tight playing, and sensitive, liberated songwriting in homespun technicolor.

-Dylan Koch