Hezekiah Jones

Hezekiah Says You're A-Ok, the debut album from Philadelphia songwriter Raphael Cutrufello's Hezekiah Jones (named from the folk song Black Cross), is a record both nuanced and swayingly graceful. Falling somewhere in the realm between early Leonard Cohen and Will Oldham's Bonnie 'Prince' Billy recordings, Hezekiah Jones has crafted an album of tightly coiled harmonies, memorable lyrical melodies, and nimble, literate songwriting. Raphael, who is also an occasional singer/songwriter for Philly touring band StillWillis, opens the album with the hypnotic 'Agnes of the World,' setting the stage for a record populated with songs crafted like messages in bottles, tossed over the deck by a lone sailor on a rickety ship. The messages at first are sweet love letters, a little melancholy and a little homesick, but as the album progresses the ship turns a bit askew as the songs take on a slightly cracked logic and the wide-eyed air of 4 AM sleep deprivation. The transition brings to mind the nervous eclecticism of the Beatles' White Album, only with a hazy delivery as if it were recorded by modern folk luminaries Hayden or Iron & Wine. Albert Hash, replete with distorted harmonica and gorgeous saw-like vocals, paints a figure akin to some of Lennon's fragmented character studies, while songs like Postpone channel that lush, acoustic beauty McCartney brought to I'm So Tired and Blackbird. In this context, the screen-door soundscape and prominent use of the slide whistle on Writing Letters in the Morning, or the kazoo chorus and Tom Waits junkyard clang of Hildebrand nestle themselves next to the summer hammock sentiment of Nothing's Bound and the tempered, bittersweet How You Feel About Traveling in a surprisingly cohesive, complementary fashion. It's an album that is both easy to fall in love with and difficult to really nail down where it's coming from, comfortable but unexpected, unabashedly beautiful and languidly unnerving. I've never heard anything quite like it, and we here at Yer Bird are thrilled to bring it to you. I do hope you'll enjoy it. Hezekiah Says You're A-Ok was recorded in Philadelphia and mastered at Masterworks by Philly legend Peter Humphreys (Lou Rawls, David Bowie).