Patrick Jasper Gives Us ‘Loreto’
Patrick Jasper is a Chicago-based artist who has been performing with bands in the city for the last 7 years and he’s now sharing his own songs with his new debut album, Loreto.
Jasper has been playing guitar for Chicago artists or bands Ari Lindo’s solo project (Late Nite Laundry), Creature Fight, and previously in Burr Oak, and he slowly began sharing his solo project in late 2020.
After releasing his two singles as a solo folk artist, he assembled his full band partway into 2022 with members bassist Jake Gordon (Ari Lindo, formerly Burr Oak) and Andy Danstrom (You Are the Garden). The sound quickly evolved from its songwriter roots to a more instrumentally heavy, experimental rock trio. With the addition of saxophonist/keyboardist Will Barnard and guitarist Kyle Paul (Diane Coffee), the songs became even more layered and complex, drawing on all of the members’ jazz backgrounds while keeping their focus on the songwriting and lyrics.
The Chicago Reader wrote of his music, saying, “Jasper’s Spotify is full of music that calls back to his roots as a folkie singer-songwriter, but his current rock-rooted work is more adventurous and progressive, with lots more bass and drums.”
The alt-weekly also mentioned Jasper wrote the album on a nylon string guitar while spending several months traveling and living in his van. Once he returned to Chicago, he fleshed out each tune in collaboration with a band and then recorded them with local engineer/producer Andrew Christopoulus.
Jasper recorded the album with the band in December 2022 at Christopoulus’ family cabin in Wisconsin. He said, “The first four day stint, shut in by below zero temperatures, was the most potent musical experience of my entire life.”
He continued, “Spending 12-14 hours a day recording the instrumentals I tapped into a groove that allowed me to come as close as I ever have to my true artistic expression. I returned later that winter to record vocals and overdub more instruments to fill out the album. Finishing the process in Chicago over the next few months, with orchestral arrangements like flugelhorn played by Kris Hansen and bass clarinet by Sarah Clausen, made the album sparkle with textures and timbres unlike anything I’ve made before.”
Many of the song ideas first came to Jasper during travel, giving songs like “Drift Drift” an apt name and also gives it a transitory feeling. Jasper wrote this song in particular while living in his van in 2021, he said “Most of the songs from this album were written while I was sitting in my van with just a nylon string acoustic guitar. The song is about drifting from place to place without wanting anything more than to just exist where you are.”
The title track “Loreto” was also written during his travels, named after the town in Baja California, Mexico. He added, “I was sitting in this beautiful beach town and strumming when I came up with the main riff/hook and I could immediately hear the heavy Nirvana inspired grungy sound. The lyrics are basically nonsense which is one of my favorite ways to write, aiming for words that just sound good together aesthetically instead of having any particular meaning in mind.”
Photo by: Carson White