The Lonesome Organist is the

one-man band A one-man band is a musician who plays a number of instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical or electronic contraptions. One-man bands also often sing while they perform. The simplest type of "one-man ban ...

project of Jeremy Jacobsen, keyboardist for Chicago

Post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

combo,

5ive Style Five Style (a name taken from a martial arts technique called " Five Style Fist"), also known as 5ive Style, was a Chicago-based funk/jam quartet. Their albums were released on the Sub Pop label in the 1990s. History The group existed from about ...

. He has released three albums on Chicago indie label Thrill Jockey; a fourth album, Ashes... Alas was self-released in 2015.

Style

According to Allmusic, influences for the project include film composer,

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classica ...

and

Psychobilly Psychobilly is a rock music fusion genre that fuses elements of rockabilly and punk rock. It's been defined as "loud frantic rockabilly music", it has also been said that it "takes the traditional countrified rock style known as rockabilly, ram ...

legend, Hasil Adkins. A multi-instrumentalist, Jacobsen, uses guitar, keys, harmonica, steel drum, and various percussion instruments to get his unique blend of blues, rock, garage, Caribbean, and Appalachian sounds. According to Thrill Jockey's official artist site, no more than 8 tracks are recorded for each song, allowing Jacobsen to preserve the authenticity of his live show in which he simultaneously plays two or more instruments at once. An updated recording of ''The Lost Oar'' (first recorded on 1997's ''Collector of Cactus Echo Bags'') can be found on

's second full-length ''Miniature Portraits''. For ''Forms and Follies'', Jacobsen added bassist Nick Macri, of

Bobby Conn Jeffrey Stafford (born June 13, 1967), known professionally as Bobby Conn, is an American musician based in Chicago, Illinois. He often collaborates with other artists and film-maker Usama Alshaibi. Career Conn was born as Jeffrey Stafford in ...

C-Clamp A C-clamp or G-clamp or G-cramp is a type of clamp device typically used to hold a wood or metal workpiece, and often used in, but are not limited to, carpentry and welding. Often believed that these clamps are called "C" clamps because of the ...

and Euphone, for two tracks.

Performances and collaboration

The Lonesome Organist has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. He performed at the 2002

Meltdown Festival Meltdown is an annual festival held in London, featuring a mix of music, art, performance and film. Meltdown is held in June at Southbank Centre, the arts complex covering and including the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and The ...

, curated by

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

, at

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I l ...

in London and at the 2002 ATP Festival, curated by Shellac. Jeremy Jacobsen has recorded with

, Euphone, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion,

Via Tania Tania May-Bowers, better known by her stage name Via Tania, is an Australian singer formerly based in Chicago, Illinois. Life and career Via Tania originally started performing in Sydney during the 1990s with her sister Kim Bowers in noise out ...

, Red Red Meat,

Man or Astro-man? Man or Astro-man? is an American surf rock group that formed in Auburn, Alabama in the early 1990s and came to prominence over the following decade. Primarily instrumental, Man or Astro-man? blended the surf rock style of the early 1960s like ...

and Barbez, and has composed music for Redmoon Theater as well as the Chicago

Complaints Choir Complaints Choir is a community art project that invites people to sing about their complaints in a choir together with fellow complainers. The first Complaints Choir was organized in Birmingham (UK) in 2005, followed by the Complaints Choirs of ...

Discography

*''Collector of Cactus Echo Bags'', Thrill Jockey, 1997 *''Cavalcade'', Thrill Jockey, 1999 *''Forms and Follies'', Thrill Jockey, June 3, 2003 *''Ashes... Alas'', self-released, Oct. 31, 2015

References

External links

Official Lonesome Organist Website

Dusted Magazine reviews Forms and Follies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lonesome Organist, The Musical groups from Chicago