To Be Continued. ER Jurken

What a strange band name, ER Jurken. Now jurken is in Dutch the plural of jurk, meaning dress. Musically, the band reminds me of a lot acts, but I still have not really gotten my head around what. On top of all this, I've played the album multiple times in just a few days, so enough reasons to delve in a bit deeper.

E.R. (Ed) Jurken is the name of the artist. So, it is not a band but a solo artist. To Be Continued is his second album, after the release in 2021 of 'I Stand Corrected'. I'm not familiar with this album, but this one is going down really well. Jurken goes back to a time when bands wanted to write pure pop songs. Here and there I hear The Kinks in abundance, but combined with a U.S. country feel not unlike Midlake presents or Wilco with a 100% pop intent.

It is even more in the singing that I am triggered the whole time but my brain just doesn't find the answer so far, except that the harmony vocals bring me back to Midlake circa 20 years ago. The outcome is very varied songs, somewhere in between pop/rock and ballads. Enough of that, let's focus on To Be Continued.

ER Jurken plays songs that go to my brain immediately. Hundreds of songs and albums paved the way for this one to hit straight home. Because that is exactly what To Be Continued did, so I noticed. This album combines the best U.S. and U.K. pop music has to offer. Somehow it is a perfect amalgam. To perfect the music, Jurken brought in three members of Chicago's powertrio Junegrass, Ben Brazil, Grant Engstrom and Jack Schemenauer on bass, guitar, drums and percussion, his friend Jonathan Kult on piano and worked with Paul von Mertens who wrote the arrangements for the horns and violins. On top of this all are the heavenly vocals of Jurken and especially when he starts to harmonies with himself. At least my guess is that by far if not all the the layered vocals are Ed Jurken. The result is an exquisite experience to listen to.

Within a few days To Be Continued has made me an addict to the album. I just have to put on the album again and again. It has been a while since an album has made such a great impression on me. Experience teaches me that quite often an album like this may fizzle out soon after, but there are certainly very positive exceptions to this rule. Time will tell which way To Be Continued will go but in the mean time I'm going to enjoy it for the whole of the ride.

As I already wrote, the album is so varied. It can rock rather hard, like in 'Mighty And Concealed', and still have that flowing almost floating vocals. But also listen to how the lead guitar's solo mixes with the string section. This is something else. There is the light pop of 'I Do', with a country twang added for good measure. The pop ballad 'Morning Paper' is another example of variation. Again that singing is there. Musically, the album is top already but the harmony vocals are the extra layer making the album so much better.

I was totally taken by surprise by To Be Continued, as I started listening without any form of expectation. Within a few songs I knew I was in for a treat, for something special. ER Jurken managed to keep that expectation in place until the very end.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can listen to and order To Be Continued here:

https://erjurken.bandcamp.com/album/to-be-continued-2