JMSN (Photo: Sebastian Maldonado)
But JMSN is more focused on himself than the world he left behind. He has the appearance, too, of someone totally fucking done with trying to play a role. Long hair and armed with a beard he sometimes reigns in and other times lets grow wild, he looks more an Edward Sharpe type than a steamy bedroom staple, but that left-field visual defiance is apropos. Noting an affinity for the likes of Prince and Radiohead, he’s interested in creating music not only outside the realm of current tastes, fashion or expectations but with little regard for the context of his previous albums. Though the new LP and Priscilla share the same sensualness at their center, the new material favors full production and traditional instrumentation far more than its predecessor did, throwing back to his Motown roots in a more articulated way. And the new material, he promises, is vastly different than either.
“A lot of where an artist like Beck influences me and inspires me is that he didn’t know what kind of album he was going to make. He’s Beck, he’s an artist, and he can do whatever he wants, and that’s the artist I want to be,” JMSN explained of his brand of creative autonomy. “Radiohead was the same way. You couldn’t put them in a box.”
That said, JMSN was essential to his future. Really, it’s his first shot at continuation, at refinement, a chance to evolve instead of totally reinvent in a non-organic way. And the growth heard on songs like “Street Sweeper,” “Addicted” and “Waves” seems to support that freedom to do so, which is what he needed all along.
“For me, it was a step in the right direction and an evolution of what I do,” JMSN said. “It’s exactly what I wanted it to be, and moving past it, I want to do something even better. But I needed to make that step in the first place. It’s another step away from what I was before, too. It’s awesome that people still like it, even if it wasn’t my old stuff.”
The future isn’t filled with periods or exclamation points, but rather questions marks. What’s next? Where will it go? What will it sound like? It’s an open world off the conveyor belt to pop stardom, and the chance to answer the questions for himself instead of having them stamped on his head.
“That’s the beautiful thing about it — that it’s different,” JMSN said of his current work. “I want to make it the best version of what it is. I’m not concerned with my other stuff, because this is not like that. I’m just rolling with that wave as a part of my journey.”
