Jonathan Something to Release GASOLINE Single Ahead of New LP

Jonathan Something, the recording project of Connecticut musician Jonathan Searles, has released a new single titled GASOLINE along with a live performance video filmed at Greenpoint Recording Collective in Brooklyn. The track is the second preview from his upcoming album ONE MORE LONESOME COWBOY SONG, due out via High Shelter and Virgin Music Group, following the previously released single COUNTRY ROSE.

ONE MORE LONESOME COWBOY SONG is set for release on October 16 via High Shelter, a new Virgin Music-backed label. It follows Searles' 2020 full-length CANNIBAL HOUSE RULES, a synth-driven set of mid-'80s-style pop songs structured to play like the soundtrack to a non-existent horror film. The Connecticut-based artist has shifted styles across his previous albums, ranging from garage rock and anti-folk to retro synth-pop and sample-laden neo-soul.

Searles wrote, recorded, and produced the new album himself, playing all of the instruments.

Searles recently traveled to Greenpoint Recording Collective in Brooklyn to record live versions of the songs with his new band members, Katie Martucci on bass and Dylan McKinstry on drums. Alongside a Magnet Magazine premiere of the 'Gasoline' performance video, Searles said, ''Gasoline' heralded a new age for my songwriting. The process opened a door to exploring my internal world in a way I had longed for but lacked the ability to express. It's a distillation of the confusion and yearning I felt while making the record and an exercise in performing succinct acrobatics around universal truths.'

ONE MORE LONESOME COWBOY SONG draws on the cosmic cowboy tradition of Gram Parsons or Gene Clark, while the recordings share more in common with Neutral Milk Hotel or Elliott Smith, layering fingerpicked acoustic and electric guitars with hushed, doubletracked vocals.

'Most of these songs are about trying to understand something, about trying to come to terms with some truth about the human condition,' Searles reflects. 'These songs all came to me in little epiphanies when I finally slowed down enough to hear my own thoughts.'

Searles grew up enthralled with music but conflicted about the industry and its rigid constraints. His 2018 debut album OUTLANDISH POETICA resulted in a tour supporting Peter Bjorn and John, and subsequent releases received praise from outlets including NPR Music, Billboard, The Line of Best Fit, Paste Magazine, American Songwriter, and FLOOD Magazine. He worked quickly, often writing and recording entire albums within a month, but by 2020 the experience had left him jaded.

'I was finding it hard to identify with being an artist anymore,' he confesses. 'It didn't bring me the same joy or comfort it used to, and I found that the only way for me to really enjoy music again was to stop making it.'

Searles put his guitar aside and spent the next several years running audio and visual setups, considering alternative creative paths like screenwriting and filmmaking, but a mysterious illness and a painful back injury led to an unexpected reunion with songwriting. When he later suffered a debilitating anxiety attack and subsequent deep depression, he began to write in order to make sense of it all. 'I needed to use it as a catalyst to start thinking more seriously about spirituality and growth and the changes I needed to make in my life,' he explains. 'And that journey became One More Lonesome Cowboy Song.'

Searles' probing self-reflections lie at the heart of the album, but it is decidedly more existential than autobiographical, repeatedly asserting that any time spent wrestling with fundamental questions about our humanity is its own reward. 'The cowboy of the album title is metaphorical,' he says. 'It's that dark, brooding, reclusive part of myself that didn't know how to be happy. This record is my farewell to him.'

One More Lonesome Cowboy Song Tracklisting

1. Country Rose

2. Siren Song

3. The Garden

4. Gasoline

5. Dancer in the Sky

6. One Step More

7. Before I Go

The seven-track album marks a departure from Searles' 2020 release CANNIBAL HOUSE RULES and finds him working with new band members Katie Martucci on bass and Dylan McKinstry on drums. Searles wrote, recorded, and produced the new album himself, playing all of the instruments.

Photo Credit: Michael Boyle

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