ALBUM REVIEW: Jes Hudak - Photographic Memory
Photo by Amy Davis
“This album is full of pain, love, and acceptance. An emotional, yet important journey that showcases Hudak’s talent and resilience.”
Written over the course of a decade, Jes Hudak’s latest album, Photographic Memory, is a compilation of songs that she wrote both before, and after having kids. Having known Jes personally for more than a decade, I was really looking forward to digging into these songs and seeing if I could get an idea of which era was being represented in the songs.
After having most of my latest reviews being written on gray, rainy days, I was especially happy to listen to this album on my back porch, with the cloudless sky allowing the sun to warm me to my soul.
“TKO”, the first track on Photographic Memory, begins with incredible subtlety—just Hudak’s voice and a light, plinky piano as she repeats “TKO” with varying syncopation. Then, a little beat comes in, which has a slight mechanical sound and clock-like timing. Then with a deft bass-slide, the song was off and running. Heavily rooted in a singer-songwriter motif, but with more than enough pop sensibility to make it a hit, “TKO” let me know in under a minute that I was about to hear something special. One of the aspects of this album that makes it so special, is not only the talent on display in Hudak’s voice and musicianship, but that she wrote, recorded and produced the album herself in her home studio.
“I produced the entire thing. Recorded in my little home studio, and then I sent the tracks over to my right-hand man and longtime friend, Emmett O'Malley, for guitars, bass, and mixing,” Hudak noted during a recent conversation of ours.
Track two, the stunning “Rosewater” feels like an obvious homage to the trials of becoming a parent. When Jes sang the line, “I thought this would break me, instead it’s what made me ready to feel everything,” I couldn’t help but feel connected to the pain, joy and fulfillment of being a parent, even though I am not one myself. Her voice has the power to make the listener feel exactly how Jes intends them to. You not only empathize with the worry a parent must feel, but also how that worry could manifest into a higher responsibility.
It was a foreign feeling for me, but it solidified my belief that music can tap into parts of our brain we didn’t know existed.
The standout on this album is the spooky “Waiting Room.” The haunting arrangement in the first half would fit right in with the soundtrack of a haunted house, before morphing into a jazzy-tempoed groove that makes you feel as if you’ve stepped out of the haunted house and back out into fresh air.
By the time the title track came around, I felt like I had gained new insight into Jes as a person. Knowing some of the things that she has gone through in the last decade, it felt like she was really telling us how she was doing, despite what she may say outside of song.
The album ends with “Goodnight Kiss” which, according to Jes, was written “forever ago with the specific plan to have it be the last song on my future full album.” The song begins and ends with a light string arrangement, but soars immensely throughout. While there is more than one song that had me on the verge of swelling with tears, this is the one that brought me the closest to that brink. It is simply beautiful.
Photographic Memory is full of pain, love, and acceptance. It is an emotional, yet important journey that showcases Hudak’s talent and resilience.
Ten out of ten.
Jes Hudak’s latest record is available now on all streaming services and at jeshudak.bandcamp.com
