Jack Larkin to Release PURKINJE SHIFT Album, Shares "Matches & Oil"

Southern California indie-folk artist Jack Larkin will release his new album, Purkinje Shift, this Friday (8/21). The project follows an unnamed protagonist caught in a cycle of clarity and confusion, bookended by a vision procedure that promises resolution but never quite delivers it permanently. At its heart, Purkinje Shift is about losing yourself in periods of change: the relationships that fall away, the versions of yourself that get left behind, and the hard-won acceptance that clarity is really temporary. The result is a kaleidoscopic world of sound that digs deep into life's big questions while always remembering to come up for air.

Today, Jack Larkin shared the final peek into the project with the single and visualizer, 'Matches & Oil'. With thick acoustic strums and Larkin's bright, searching voice, the expansive track resembles a lost Beach Boys tune in its shadowy sunniness. 'It's very dissonant-sounding, and it has a restless energy,' Larkin explains. 'Our protagonist explores the many different choices in self-transformation available to them. They see many options in terms of their own self-construction, but are also frightened by destroying the past. The freedom of self-reinvention is presented as both intoxicating and paralyzing.'

Jack Larkin's fourth album Purkinje Shift is a massive leap forward for the Southern California singer-songwriter – intimately warm and chock full of sonic surprises at every turn, and equally reminiscent of Panda Bear's beatific psych-pop and the rustic, entrancing chamber-pop fantasias of Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen. In general, people really don't make music like Purkinje Shift anymore – which means that Larkin has arrived right on time with a unique sonic approach that completely recontextualizes his work thus far, gesturing towards a bright and shining future in the process.

Purkinje Shift is the culmination of Larkin's musical journey thus far, which began with him diving headlong into scoring, production, and sound design after graduating college. Working on others' music, as it turns out, only further drove him towards creating on his own: 'I'd be wearing headphones all day at work, and then I'd get home and want to plug in the guitar.' 2021's sharp and tangy How to Cook a Wolf was directly inspired by the cut'n'paste digital chaos of hyperpop, while The Wishing Well from 2024 found Larkin drawing his own boundaries by working within the world of library sync music – a parameter that, ironically, inspired the free-flowing sound of Purkinje Shift. 'It was a fun experiment to write with pre-confined rules, but I also got tired of that really fast,' he explains. 'I wanted to do something more creatively expansive while still keeping the listener in mind.'

Much of the album came together during an intimate 2024 session in which he holed up in a cabin near Twin Peaks' Lake Arrowhead, pulling from his love of Rossen's creative tunings as well as the monastic flourishes of Nick Drake, Mort Garson's early-electronic synth fantasias, and the far-out psychedelic pop of Animal Collective and Olivia Tremor Control. Thematically, Purkinje Shift – the title of which refers to 18th century Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyně – draws from the eternal cycle of change that one goes through in life, as well as the struggles to persevere through an uncertain world. 'As I was writing the album, there was a lot of change happening in my life,' Larkin explains. 'The album is about someone who's unable to see things clearly, experiencing the cycles of clarity and confusion that we go through in life.'

That notion of pushing oneself into uncomfortable – but ultimately rewarding – territory marks Purkinje Shift as a whole, as Larkin has put more of himself into a record than ever before. 'This is the most personal thing I've ever made lyrically,' he reflects. 'In the past, I've beat around the bush with lyrics, but there was definitely a lot of change going on in my life when I started writing this record. Now, I have a great vision of where I am, the community I'm in, and what I want to do in life. But I was definitely confused for a time, and this album was a ladder to climb out of that with.' And Purkinje Shift finds Larkin using that sonic apparatus to discover rich new elements of his musical style, gesturing towards his own limitless creative potential.

Tracklist

1. Afterimage

2. Scotopia

3. Matches & Oil

4. The Photographer

5. Cellini's Halo

6. Playing House

7. Grandfather's Axe

8. Stress Ball

9. Isn't It Familiar?

10. All Together, All Apart

11. Symphony of Light

12. Colorburst

Photo Credit: Christian Whittemore | Hi-res here

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