Jesse Jo Stark at The Deaf Institute
An LA native with a lifelong immersion in rock ‘n’ roll, Jesse Jo Stark’s story seeps through her music—a heady, stylized mix of earthy Americana and Hollywood allure. The music is timeless with unmissable nods to 70s rock, classic country, and ethereal pop, while heavy strokes of sex and kitsch add a playfulness to the workmanship of her songwriting. In 2014, she worked with former Sex Pistols guitarist, Steve Jones, to record her debut EP, Down Your Drain. Stark reappeared in 2017 with a new single, the moody, Mazzy Star-esque “Driftwood.” She then released her second EP, Dandelion, and went on to tour both the US and internationally supporting acts such as Guns N’ Roses, The Vaccines, Sunflower Bean, The Heavy, and more. The full-length debut from Jesse Jo Stark, DOOMED, is a high-drama movie in the form of an album, the kind of immediate cult classic that inspires unending infatuation.
Over the course of 11 elegantly feverish tracks, the Los Angeles-based artist conjures up an atmosphere informed by her intense fascination with the more macabre edge of the pop culture underground: Elvira, The Cramps, late-‘80s horror movies. With its in-depth exploration of desire and surrender and newfound self-possession, DOOMED ultimately blurs the edges of truth and fantasy to build a gorgeously warped world wholly defined by Starks own dream logic.
