Damien Jurado

Since the late 1990s Damien Jurado has assembled one of indie music’s most durable bodies of work, drawing widespread critical respect for a deeply felt folk style that has nevertheless moved through pop, roots rock, electric indie rock, psychedelia, and even experiments with found sound. Although Nick Drake left a clear mark on portions of his output, Jurado shaped his path after more restless, self-directed artists such as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and Randy Newman—writers willing to follow their instincts regardless of outside approval. That stance owed something to punk’s example and produced a lasting emphasis on emotional truth, prompting him to examine other people’s experiences at least as often as his own. Many of his songs unfold brief, precisely worded stories of ordinary, understated hardship, earning frequent comparisons to short-story author Raymond Carver.

After several self-released cassettes, Jurado delivered his first official album, Waters Ave S., in 1997. The follow-up, 1999’s Rehearsals for Departure, marked his critical arrival. More than a dozen records later, issued jointly on Sub Pop and Secretly Canadian, he reached the Billboard 200 for the first time with the Richard Swift–produced Maraqopa trilogy in the mid-2010s. He maintained momentum with a rapid series of releases that included his initial wholly self-produced effort, 2018’s The Horizon Just Laughed, and 2021’s The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, the record that introduced his own Maraqopa Records imprint. The subsequent year’s Reggae Film Star drew on both real and imagined unglamorous existences at the edges of the entertainment industry, an interest already signaled on The Horizon Just Laughed. His continuing fascination with 1970s and 1980s American cultural touchstones surfaced again on 2023’s Sometimes You Hurt the Ones You Hate and on Motorcycle Madness, the latter captured live to tape with an expanded ensemble.

Born in Seattle, Jurado began performing with successive local punk groups in 1989. One of these, the Christian-inflected Coolidge, also included future Pedro the Lion leader David Bazan; the band later contributed a track to the Tooth & Nail compilation I’m Your Biggest Fan, Vol. 1. In the mid-1990s Jurado simultaneously pursued solo work, composing spare folk songs and issuing them on his own cassette label, Casa Recordings. Releases such as Leaded, Trailer Park Radio, and Gasoline built a regional following, attracting the attention of fellow Christian and Sunny Day Real Estate vocalist Jeremy Enigk, who recommended him to Sub Pop. After the 7-inch singles “Motorbike” and “Trampoline,” Jurado issued Waters Ave S. in 1997 and, the next year, the intimate home-recorded EP Gathered in Song on Made in Mexico.

His second full-length, 1999’s Rehearsals for Departure, became his breakthrough, confirming him as a singer-songwriter of unusual restraint and craft and earning near-universal praise. The spare, roots-oriented folk-pop settings and vulnerable vocals drew listeners close while his gift for hooks held their attention. He next surprised observers with 2000’s Postcards and Audio Letters, a collection of overheard conversations culled from thrift-store cassettes and answering-machine tapes that Jurado had long gathered and sometimes used as songwriting prompts.

The intended successor to Rehearsals for Departure was Ghost of David, released on Sub Pop later that year. While it largely stayed within the earlier record’s approach, it also incorporated some of the found-sound techniques explored on Postcards. Jurado then moved briefly to Burnt Toast for the 2001 EP Four Songs before assembling the band Gathered in Song—guitarist Eric Fisher, bassist Josh Golden, and drummer Andy Myers—to pursue a more amplified sound. The group made its recorded debut on 2002’s fully electric I Break Chairs.

After leaving Sub Pop, Jurado signed with Secretly Canadian and returned to his characteristic understated folk style on 2003’s Where Shall You Take Me? He issued Holding His Breath on Acuarela the same year and followed with the 2004 Secretly Canadian EP Just in Time for Something. On My Way to Absence arrived in early 2005, and the hushed collection And Now That I’m in Your Shadow appeared late in 2006. A reissue of Gathered in Song with bonus tracks came out in early 2007.

Caught in the Trees, his eighth album, was released in 2008, followed by the Richard Swift–produced Saint Bartlett in spring 2010. The partnership quickly became a close friendship; the two spent a weekend that summer and unexpectedly recorded a covers set. Drawing on material from John Denver to Kraftwerk, Other People’s Songs, Vol. 1 received a temporary free digital release before year’s end. Jurado and Swift reconvened for 2012’s Maraqopa and again for 2014’s Brothers & Sisters of the Eternal Son, both of which entered the Billboard 200. Continuing the psychedelic direction initiated with Swift, 2016’s Visions of Us on the Land completed the Maraqopa trilogy. That year Secretly Canadian also gave Other People’s Songs, Vol. 1 its first physical edition.

After five consecutive albums with Swift, Jurado returned in 2018 with the more introspective The Horizon Just Laughed, his first entirely self-produced record. He relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles before recording 2019’s In the Shape of the Storm for Mama Bird Recording Co. The album collected previously unrecorded songs written across his career and was tracked in two hours using only voice and acoustic guitar, with occasional additional guitar from Josh Gordon. Another self-produced set with Gordon, What’s New, Tomboy?, appeared on Mama Bird in 2020. Jurado reunited with Gordon for The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, issued in mid-2021 on the newly formed Maraqopa Records; its songs share a theme of resilience. Later that year he appeared on Deep Sea Diver’s single “Hand in My Pocket,” then released the self-produced, Gordon-assisted Reggae Film Star on Maraqopa in 2022. Structurally and thematically cinematic, the record wove character actors, television sets, and off-camera life into its late-twentieth-century stories. Jurado revisited 1970s and 1980s Americana on March 2023’s Sometimes You Hurt the Ones You Hate, which featured an anachronistic vocal-harmony backing chorus, and on October’s Motorcycle Madness. Co-produced by Jurado and Sean Wolcott, the latter offered a more psychedelic, occasionally spontaneous sound captured live to tape with more than a dozen musicians, including saxophonist Steve Treseler and Fleet Foxes bassist Craig Curran.