Albums by Jesse Olsen Bay
weather/weight (2022)
Eight instrumental tracks, improvised live in the dance studio. Guitar, voice, percussion, piano, and electronics, this is spacious, drifting music, full of unusual sounds and surprising twists and turns.
Nine songs, written and slowly shaped over six years, and recorded in a single night in our old barn. Quiet, intimate songs, just a voice, a guitar, and a little help from the frogs and crickets. They are ruminations on life as a father, a partner, seeking beauty and solace in dreams, in the trees, in love, in grief, in the everyday.
Makings (2014)
20 songs based on unpublished writings by my grandmother, acclaimed author/activist Tillie Olsen. An evocative weave of voice, guitar, piano, percussion, toy instruments and found objects brings Tillie's words to life.
For more on Makings, click here...
Ojito (2009)
Using folk-influenced songs, minimalist soundscapes, lo-fi experimentation, and field recordings, Ojito is a reflection, investigation, and dialogue with the harsh landscape of New Mexico’s high desert. Much of Ojito consists of recordings made on a hand-held tape recorder, while exploring the expansive desert. These were later digitized, edited, and collaged to form the skeleton of Ojito. The hiss, click, and grainy sound quality of lo-fi technology, juxtaposed with the ambient sounds of the desert, form a strange and beautiful sound-bed for surreal, impressionistic lyrics, accompanied by guitar, piano, banjo, and a collection of toy instruments and found objects.
"The thoughtful turns of expression, the playful interaction between words and silence, make for though-provoking and emotional music..." - North Bay Bohemian
3 Aerial Dances EP (2013)
3 songs and ambient interludes written for the Ann Hamilton Tower in Geyserville, CA.
