(Dan Wilson has won Grammys for his work with Adele and the Dixie Chicks, and has co-written songs with John Legend, Jim James, Carole King, Spoon, among others. He released a new album in Spring and took a moment to share his favorite artist right now.)
Lately, whenever someone asks me what new artist I love, I tell them about Jeremy Messersmith.
I first met Jeremy in Minneapolis when I lived there, about 10 years ago. He was occasionally playing shows and casually giving away burned discs of his amazing songs under the name Johnny Staccato.
I loved his songs. They were like haikus.
They always had fewer sections, fewer notes, fewer words than anybody else’s. We hung out a lot, talked about music, life, and Jeremy’s nerd obsessions a lot, and ended up making an album together called “The Silver City“.
“Miracles” in particular from that record seems like it might have fallen from the sky.
And then he caught artistic fire and in a short time has pumped out “The Reluctant Graveyard”, a bright pop album of songs about death and love
Paper Moon, a stoner ambient record, and his latest, “Heart Murmurs“, which I admire as a perfect pop album and which I love as a sea of emotion to swim in.
Also notable, a video for Jeremy’s song “Tatooine” (the ultimate nerd song title?) which recaps the entire Star Wars trilogy in 3 minutes of paper cut-outs (the ultimate nerd music video?). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_3xbcJBUxY