While half the planet seems determined to make songs shorter, hooks quicker and albums increasingly disposable, Banbury’s Music by Jeremy has turned up carrying a bloody great suitcase of ideas.
This is merely the first side of a 24-track double album, arriving in four instalments between August and November. Ambitious? Absolutely. Potentially self-indulgent? You bet. But Jeremy’s clearly decided that if he’s finally going to say something, he might as well empty the notebook.
‘Be Me’ is the sensible doorway into this strange little universe. There’s an immediate indie-pop accessibility to it, but underneath sits a more uncomfortable idea: the exhausting business of becoming whichever version of yourself everybody else expects. Jeremy’s strength is that he doesn’t dress that observation up in unnecessary poetry. There’s a directness here that gives the song some genuine emotional weight.
‘The Story of a Mistress’ immediately pushes proceedings towards storytelling territory. Amazing guitar playing starts us off. Jeremy clearly worships at the altar of Dylan and Randy Newman, where characters are allowed to be flawed, compromised and occasionally very pleasant.
‘Bowie on the Wall’ inevitably carries the shadow of its namesake, but thankfully it doesn’t descend into some dreadful tribute-act impersonation. Instead, Bowie feels more like a symbol of artistic permission: change yourself, contradict yourself, make the weird thing anyway.
There’s something charming about hearing that philosophy filtered through a bloke working independently from a home studio in Banbury rather than another painfully curated Shoreditch prodigy.
‘How to Be Good’ It’s ok, but this one is one of the weaker sos.Some arrangements feel like they’re serving every idea Jeremy had rather than selecting the strongest one. When you’re planning 24 tracks, knowing what to leave out becomes almost as important as knowing what to include.
The title track, ‘A Well Worn Path’, pulls everything back towards the album’s central feeling and adds bigger production too.There’s warmth here without cheap nostalgia, and Jeremy’s fretless bass and guitar work help give proceedings a genuinely handmade quality.
Then ‘Bittersweet’ Jeremy calls his outlook “joyous realism”, and after six tracks you understand what he means. Life is frequently ridiculous, disappointing and painful, but apparently that isn’t sufficient reason to surrender to misery.
There is, of course, an elephant wandering around Jeremy’s home studio wearing an AI-branded T-shirt. Generative technology trained around his own voice has been used to help create the band he couldn’t physically assemble.
Some listeners will immediately recoil from that, particularly while music is wrestling with increasingly uncomfortable questions around artificial intelligence. Yet it makes the human fingerprints elsewhere even more important. The guitars, fretless bass, songwriting and underlying experiences belong to Jeremy; the technology is being presented as a means of realising arrangements rather than replacing the initial creative impulse.
Whether that distinction satisfies everyone is another matter entirely, and perhaps the record could lean even harder into the rough edges that distinguish Jeremy from the machinery assisting him. Occasionally you want something messier: a cracked note, an awkward breath, the audible sound of somebody nearly fucking it up. Those imperfections could actually strengthen songs built around honesty.
Still, Scenes from a Well Worn Path – Side One isn’t lacking personality. It’s sprawling, thoughtful and occasionally guilty of trying to fit an essay into a song, but its ambition is difficult to dislike.
This sounds like somebody who’s spent years collecting thoughts, regrets, records and arguments before finally opening the door and letting the lot tumble out.
And we’ve only reached Side One. God knows what’s still hiding in the suitcase.
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