Jerk // The Eisenberg Review Interview
Few artists are making music quite like Joni Kinney. Under the name Jerk, the Brooklyn-based composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist has spent the last several years building a musical world that pulls equally from beat culture, jazz fusion, soul, electronic music, and the sounds of everyday life. What began as a groove-driven project has gradually expanded into something more expansive and difficult to categorize.
Their latest release, as day breaks, completes a two-part cycle that began with as night falls. Where the earlier release explored darker and more introspective territory, as day breaks turns toward warmth, movement, and connection, drawing together jazz, funk, house grooves, breakbeats, birdsong, and field recordings into a vivid soundtrack for the waking hours. Together, the two records feel less like separate releases than complementary halves of a larger whole, occupying a musical space somewhere between day and night.
I caught up with Kinney to discuss completing the project, collaborating with drummer Martin Wade, the idea of "sonic mantras," and, naturally, spend a little time celebrating the enduring genius of Madvillainy.
