Jesse Mac Cormack

Jesse Mac Cormack, an explorative Canadian songwriter and producer also recognized for his live readings of blues guitar material, launched his association with a label by issuing two introspective and subtly psychedelic EPs during 2015. The multi-instrumentalist then broadened his layered acoustic-electronic palette on a third EP titled After the Glow, which appeared in 2016.

While maintaining an active role as a producer, Cormack joined the roster of Montreal-headquartered Secret City Records as a solo performer in 2015. The label combined his EPs Crush and Music for the Soul for a joint release that July, three months ahead of its presentation of Emilie Kahn’s pastoral harp album 10 000, an effort Cormack had produced. During the same period he also handled production duties on Rosie Valland’s Partir Avant. Throughout the following year he brought his own material to stages while supporting alternative artists such as Patrick Watson, Cat Power, Half Moon Run, and the Barr Brothers.

In 2016 Secret City issued Crush and Music for the Soul together on vinyl and simultaneously presented Cormack’s third EP, the lusher After the Glow; he performed at that year’s Montreal Jazz Festival as well. During 2017 he arranged, recorded, and mixed Helena Deland’s debut EP Drawing Room and revisited the Montreal Jazz Festival, this time offering interpretations of blues great Muddy Waters. He returned once more in 2018, presenting a program of Stevie Ray Vaughan covers, before unveiling his first new original work in two and a half years—the single “No Love Go”—in early 2019. The track featured on his full-length debut Now, which arrived that May.