"I wrote “Adriatic” while failing at moving to Greece. I was trying to break outside of the confines of my immediate physical reality. Life is full of practical limitations in terms of having a body, or what you can afford in terms of money, etc. but you can always go to a place in your head where everything is possible, and the song is a celebration of reclaiming that. I hadn't written anything for a long time. I got very depressed after my first record, the whole experience was just so bad that I wasn't sure whether I wanted to make music anymore. Writing this song was taking back ownership of that creative space which is just my thing and it’s powerful," Westerman explains.
"There are periods in everybody's life where they feel like maybe they don't have any control over anything. It's the realisation that there's a part of you that they can't get to unless you allow for it, and you can always keep that space, even if it's buried, it doesn't go away as long as you remember that it's there."
Written in Athens and recorded over five weeks on the Greek island of Hydra with producer Marta Salogni, A Jackal’s Wedding follows Westerman’s second album, An Inbuilt Fault (2023).
The environment of Hydra itself imposed additional limitations. It was 43°C, and they had to keep the windows open at all times; daytime recordings still bear the hum of the cicadas outside, and otherwise they had to toil through the sweltering quiet of the night. “Allowing the restrictions of the place, it becomes an elemental part of what you’re doing,” Westerman says. “The record is authentic by necessity.”
Tracklist:
- S. Machine
- About Leaving
- Adriatic
- Mosquito
- Spring
- PSFN
- Nevermind
- Agnus Dei
- Nature of a Language
- Weak Hands
- You Are Indelibly Where I Sleep