Biography
Hailing from Los Angeles, Lucas Nathan functions as the vessel inhabited by an interdimensional entity who performs experimental pop under the moniker Jerry Paper. The project first emerged in the early 2010s through a run of limited-edition cassettes and LPs, with Paper crafting woozy, lo-fi material in a bedroom setting on inexpensive keyboards and delivering existential lyrics about anxiety and hopelessness atop smooth, Muzak-style instrumental beds. Live appearances found the artist wearing a flower garland or silk robe while delivering deadpan spoken interludes tied to the songs. Later works grew more ambitious in scope yet retained a fascination with overtly synthetic keyboard sounds that mimicked acoustic instruments. The 2016 release Toon Time Raw! presented lush, elaborate arrangements backed by BadBadNotGood, listed on the credits as Easy Feelings Unlimited. Paper joined the Stones Throw roster in 2018, issuing the smooth, sophisticated full-length Like a Baby on the imprint that same year. Subsequent output continued in a playful, off-kilter vein, encompassing the more rocking Free Time in 2022 and the psychedelic Inbetweezer in 2024.
As a child Nathan studied multiple instruments and participated in several student bands. During adolescence the musician felt little interest in electronic music, yet after experimenting with a friend’s synthesizer decided to pursue the genre as a deliberate means of cultivating appreciation for it. In 2009 Nathan launched the project Zonotope™, conceived as propaganda for an alternative spiritual community called the Temple of Pure Information and Mainframe Devotion. Through cassette, CD-R, and digital releases on imprints such as the Curatorial Club and Hobo Cult, including a split tape with Panabrite, Nathan assembled bubbly ambient soundscapes that gradually incorporated a sedated croon. Additional noisier and more experimental material appeared under the name Diane Kensington Devotional Band, framed as the output of a Wellness Group for a fictional religion that travels into the space between the 1 and the 0 through a technique termed Trance Channels.
The name Jerry Paper surfaced in the credits of both projects, credited either as composer or as the being through whom the music was channeled, with Paper also acknowledged as the builder of the Mainframe. According to the narrative, Paper eventually left the spiritual community in pursuit of a less orthodox form of spirituality. Jerry Paper’s debut cassette, Vol. 1, came out on Digitalis Limited in 2012 and featured songs that were somewhat less abstract than the Zonotope™ work. The 2013 mini-album International Man of Misery, released by Orange Milk, was characterized by its creator as “a cartoonish version of depression.” Almost simultaneously Digitalis issued another cassette, Fuzzy Logic, centered on the ways technology and politics complicate contemporary existence.
Patient Sounds Intl. released Paper’s first LP, Feels Emotion, in early 2014 alongside a brief mockumentary about the artist. The album displayed more sophisticated production values and higher fidelity than prior efforts while incorporating tracks that departed from conventional song forms. After a split cassette with Andy Boay on Hausu Mountain, the second LP Big Pop for Chameleon World appeared on Orange Milk. Conceived as a soundtrack to Nathan’s surrealist adventure game Dr. Javier Genneheigen’s Chameleon World, the record emphasized synthetic recreations of acoustic instruments to examine the notion of simulacra. The same sound palette was later used for Carousel, credited to Jerry Paper & His Digital Orchestra; Bayonet Records issued the album in 2015, when the label also housed Frankie Cosmos, and the material featured self-consciously ironic timbres such as synthetic saxophone and harpsichord.
Rather than relying on digital instrumentation, Paper tracked the subsequent album Toon Time Raw! with a live backing band billed as Easy Feelings Unlimited—actually BadBadNotGood—inside a Toronto studio, resulting in a richer and funkier sound with a noticeably more expressive vocal performance. The lyrics concerned cartoon animals confronting human dilemmas. In 2017 Paper produced and sang on the track “Gotta Know” by American rapper Kari Faux, who had become fixated on Paper’s music after encountering it via an online streaming platform.
The following year Paper signed with the respected Los Angeles-based label Stones Throw. The first release for the imprint was the single “Your Cocoon,” co-produced with Matty Tavares, then a member of BBNG. The full-length Like a Baby arrived in October 2018 and included guest appearances by Weyes Blood and Charlotte Day Wilson. Jerry Paper performed and toured as a five-piece band, while Abracadabra, recorded by Nathan alone, surfaced in May 2020. After coming out as non-binary, Paper issued Free Time on Stones Throw in 2022, an album that reflected on self-identity and the experience of being misunderstood. Inbetweezer, a psychedelic-influenced set recorded while Nathan trained to become a therapist, followed in 2024.
As a child Nathan studied multiple instruments and participated in several student bands. During adolescence the musician felt little interest in electronic music, yet after experimenting with a friend’s synthesizer decided to pursue the genre as a deliberate means of cultivating appreciation for it. In 2009 Nathan launched the project Zonotope™, conceived as propaganda for an alternative spiritual community called the Temple of Pure Information and Mainframe Devotion. Through cassette, CD-R, and digital releases on imprints such as the Curatorial Club and Hobo Cult, including a split tape with Panabrite, Nathan assembled bubbly ambient soundscapes that gradually incorporated a sedated croon. Additional noisier and more experimental material appeared under the name Diane Kensington Devotional Band, framed as the output of a Wellness Group for a fictional religion that travels into the space between the 1 and the 0 through a technique termed Trance Channels.
The name Jerry Paper surfaced in the credits of both projects, credited either as composer or as the being through whom the music was channeled, with Paper also acknowledged as the builder of the Mainframe. According to the narrative, Paper eventually left the spiritual community in pursuit of a less orthodox form of spirituality. Jerry Paper’s debut cassette, Vol. 1, came out on Digitalis Limited in 2012 and featured songs that were somewhat less abstract than the Zonotope™ work. The 2013 mini-album International Man of Misery, released by Orange Milk, was characterized by its creator as “a cartoonish version of depression.” Almost simultaneously Digitalis issued another cassette, Fuzzy Logic, centered on the ways technology and politics complicate contemporary existence.
Patient Sounds Intl. released Paper’s first LP, Feels Emotion, in early 2014 alongside a brief mockumentary about the artist. The album displayed more sophisticated production values and higher fidelity than prior efforts while incorporating tracks that departed from conventional song forms. After a split cassette with Andy Boay on Hausu Mountain, the second LP Big Pop for Chameleon World appeared on Orange Milk. Conceived as a soundtrack to Nathan’s surrealist adventure game Dr. Javier Genneheigen’s Chameleon World, the record emphasized synthetic recreations of acoustic instruments to examine the notion of simulacra. The same sound palette was later used for Carousel, credited to Jerry Paper & His Digital Orchestra; Bayonet Records issued the album in 2015, when the label also housed Frankie Cosmos, and the material featured self-consciously ironic timbres such as synthetic saxophone and harpsichord.
Rather than relying on digital instrumentation, Paper tracked the subsequent album Toon Time Raw! with a live backing band billed as Easy Feelings Unlimited—actually BadBadNotGood—inside a Toronto studio, resulting in a richer and funkier sound with a noticeably more expressive vocal performance. The lyrics concerned cartoon animals confronting human dilemmas. In 2017 Paper produced and sang on the track “Gotta Know” by American rapper Kari Faux, who had become fixated on Paper’s music after encountering it via an online streaming platform.
The following year Paper signed with the respected Los Angeles-based label Stones Throw. The first release for the imprint was the single “Your Cocoon,” co-produced with Matty Tavares, then a member of BBNG. The full-length Like a Baby arrived in October 2018 and included guest appearances by Weyes Blood and Charlotte Day Wilson. Jerry Paper performed and toured as a five-piece band, while Abracadabra, recorded by Nathan alone, surfaced in May 2020. After coming out as non-binary, Paper issued Free Time on Stones Throw in 2022, an album that reflected on self-identity and the experience of being misunderstood. Inbetweezer, a psychedelic-influenced set recorded while Nathan trained to become a therapist, followed in 2024.
Albums
BOiNK!
2026
INBETWEEZER
2024
Free Time
2022
Duumb
2022
Just Say Play
2022
Kno Me
2022
Abracadabra
2020
Like a Baby
2018
Toon Time Raw!
2016
Carousel
2015
Jerry Paper / Andy Boay
2014
Singles
