JERRY PAPER
ARTIST BIO
Jerry Paper is the sonic caricature of Los Angeles-based musician Lucas Nathan. Brought into the world after Nathan's previous, more abstract projects dissolved into the ether, Jerry Paper represents a cartoonish vision of Self materialized through Jerry's bizarre vision of pop music.
The latest full-length from Jerry Paper, Toon Time Raw!, is a continuation of Nathan’s amoebic mission. Whereas their previous albums featured them alone — with their synthesizer, drum machine, and the occasional guitar — this new record features backing instrumentation from Easy Feelings Unlimited, a jazz band who has asked to remain anonymous. Though the synth sax has been traded for real brass, it’s still the same Jerry songwriting.
Emerging from a steady diet of Erasmo Carlos, Stereolab, Kevin Ayers, Prefab Sprout, Todd Rundgren, and Steely Dan with hefty doses of George Saunders and Don DeLillo, Toon Time Raw! is a metamorphosis of Jerry’s style that nonetheless retains their characteristic wit and sentimentality. Musically, the album fills the space somewhere between jazz-rock, sophisti-pop, and psychedelia. Lyrically, the album follows a cast of anthropomorphic animals navigating their cartoon reality, facing "the quotidian aches and pains of being a Being." Can you imagine if Martin Heidegger created Looney Tunes? Jerry already did.
