MORNINGSTAR MUSIC CLUB en showcase @ Balades Sonores

Liminal Zone is the sparkly, soul and groove laden fifth album from Morning Star Music Club, a project led by Jesse D. Vernon (This Is the Kit, John Parish, The Moonflowers).

Previously known simply as Morning Star, the name has been extended to acknowledge the collective involved in the new record – Liminal Zone, the band’s first release in over ten years.
While Jesse wrote all the songs and most of the arrangements, the bunch of close musician friends he gathered to flesh out the tracks turned the recording process into what Jesse calls “a kind of music club workshop environment,” with production from long-term collaborator John Parish.

Liminal Zone is a selection of both soulful and soul-searching indie-pop songs led by guitars and the vocal harmonies of Lisa Weisslinger (guitar) and Abby Tsype (bass) alongside Jesse’s own mellow tones, with themes of losing and finding oneself, the breaking and mending of one’s heart, and the fragmentation and reunification of family, community and even society as a whole. There’s a lot of beauty and some wistful moments but plenty of sparkling fun and humour too including a cover of Jessie Mae Hemphill’s ‘Jessie’s Love Song’.

The rest of Liminal Zone consists of original tracks. ‘Carry It Home’ opens the proceedings with funkadelic style and introduces us to the lush harmonies and charming quirks to be expected throughout the album. The song focuses on the sanctifying nature of home, as Jesse explains: ‘The lyrics are all about coming clean to ourselves and those around us about the changes we’re going through. Whatever you’ve done, whatever (or whoever) you’re carrying around with you, carry it home, live with it…. and watch it transform’.

‘Spiritual Guide’ continues the theme of home but on a slightly more divine level, while musically tapping into Jesse’s ongoing love of 50s and 60s gospel and blues. ‘Thought I’d have everything sorted out by today’, Jesse croons on the opening line in keeping with the album’s low-key British humour. ‘It’s about getting ready to receive some kind of spiritual enlightenment, but will we ever really be prepared? Who and what will guide us through?’ explains Jesse. The track is the b-side of the album’s first and equally mellow single, ‘Drifting’, which could be a mid-period Neil Young tune and is written in the tradition of what Jesse calls ‘inquisitive backing vocal backing songs, such as “With a Little Help From My Friends”’.

‘Mind Mind’ takes the album down a more grove-laden path with its compelling bassline, while the album title track ‘Liminal Zone’ is a more freestyle, psychedelic affair complete with multilayered soundscapes and a horn solo. Its slightly disconnected feel matches the lyrics ‘A touch of the moon brushes your face/ I see shadow taking my place/ I won’t ask questions, where nothing is know/ All this potential in the liminal zone.’ As Jesse expands: ‘You think you’re here but you’re there, or nowhere, or somewhere in between. Are you tripping or is life fundamentally bizarre, confusing, insane even? Is that ok?’ Jesse’s rich and clear vocals on both tracks recalling Jona Lewie, or perhaps a more laidback Ian Dury.

‘The Tower Still Stands’ straddles the mellow and robust ends of the album in one song, with its explosive frenzied crescendo. It’s a good representation of the album, presenting music that is a rare mixture of often inharmonious elements, somehow managing a perfect balance between accessible and complex, light and heavy, soft and danceable.

Liminal Zone is an album of gently ambitious indie-pop full of heartfelt performances, showcasing Jesse’s expansive talent and deep, lifelong love of music, tapping into wide ranging influences such as the Velvet Underground, Hendrix, Dr. John and Leonard Cohen, with a dip into the cinematic – ‘the sort of stuff you’d find in a Wes Anderson film, arrangements with a huge sense of scale.’

Lyrically, through its emotional earnestness, one glimpses a kindness rare in today’s jaded world. It asks difficult questions, yet there is no sense of urgency in the songs to find the answers – they’re happy to hang out and float on the groove of Morning Star Music Club’s bliss-tinged melancholy.