Jake Xerxes Fussell

Jake Xerxes Fussell is a singer and guitarist from Durham, North Carolina. Jake's 2015 self-titled debut record, produced by and featuring William Tyler, transmutes ten arcane folk and blues tunes into vibey cosmic laments and crooked riverine rambles. Collaborating with Tyler and engineer Mark Nevers in Nashville was a conscious decision to depart cloistered trad scenes and sonics for broader, more oblique horizons. In 2017 Fussell followed his debut with a moving new album of Natural Questions in the form of transmogrified folk/blues koans. This time these radiant ancient tunes tone several shades darker while amplifying their absurdist humour, illuminating our national, and psychic, predicaments. What in the Natural World features art by iconic painter Roger Brown and contributions from three notable Nathans: Nathan Bowles (Steve Gunn), Nathan Salsburg (Alan Lomax Archive), and Nathan Golub (Mountain Goats). On his most recent album for Paradise Of Bachelors 'Out of Sight', his most finely wrought album yet, Fussell ushers up an utterly transporting selection of traditional narrative folksongs addressing the troubles and delights of love, work, and wine (i.e., the things that matter), collected from a myriad of obscure sources and deftly metamorphosed, Out of Sight contains, among other moving curiosities, a fishmonger’s cry that sounds like an astral lament; a cotton mill tune that humorously explores the unknown terrain of death and memory; and a shanty/gospel song equally concerned with terrestrial boozing and heavenly transcendence. Always compelling and deftly impressive, Jake’s live shows have become must attend events