Saunder Jurriaans
Beasts
Decca Records
Friday, September 18, 2020 

‘Beasts’ is the debut solo album by Saunder Jurriaans, the acclaimed singer, songwriter and composer whose award-winning soundtrack work with Danny Bensi has helped define a string of hit television series including Ozark, The OA and American Gods as well as acclaimed arthouse films such as Martha Marcy May Marlene, Enemy, The One I Love and The Fits.

Now, Jurriaans is stepping into uncharted territory with one of the most vulnerable, affecting and musically inventive records you’ll hear in 2020. “These songs were written after a difficult number of years dealing with depression,” explains Jurriaans. “It’s an album about a fractured personality somehow trying to put himself back together.”

Born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1977, Jurriaans is the child of Dutch immigrants who bounced around the United States before settling in Seattle, Washington just in time for the birth of grunge. By then, Jurriaans had already developed a taste for Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the stars of the 80s metal scene: Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera. Aged 10, he picked up his metalhead older brother’s black Peavey guitar for the first time. A year later he formed his first band, Menace, and began his lifelong obsession with songwriting.

After moving to Providence, ostensibly to study at the Rhode Island School of Design, Jurriaans instead dropped out to play in a band. Around the same time he met Danny Bensi for the first time, and the pair quickly became collaborators. “He's a cellist, so we immediately bonded over music,” says Jurriaans. “We have a very similar temperament.”

After moving to New York in 2000, Jurriaans, Bensi and drummer Gregory Rogove formed the proggy, chamber-rock trio Tarantula, later renamed Tarantula A.D. and finally Priestbird. The scope of their music is best reflected in the eclectic range of bands they toured with, including Avant-jazz-funk band Medeski Martin & Wood, freak folk singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart, psychedelic duo Cocorosie and heavy-metal rockers, The Sword. In Europe, they opened for Pearl Jam. “We fit in with all of it, in a weird way,” says Jurriaans. “We had a lot of classical influences, but we also had some heavier, Sabbath-y riffs.”

The first film Jurriaans and Bensi composed the score for was 2010 drama Two Gates Of Sleep. The director, Alistair Banks Griffin, was a friend of Jurriaans’ from Rhode Island School of Design. The new way of working came naturally to the pair. “We were in my little Brooklyn apartment living room just doing what we did with the band: layering strings and percussion,” remembers Jurriaans. “We were so good and fast, and being able to express ourselves in that way was pretty cool.”

The critical applause for their debut soundtrack led to ‘Danny and Saunder’ to score the 2011 thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Sarah Paulson, and from then their career snowballed. Over the last decade their music has soundtracked over 100 films and television shows including Barry, Chef’s Table, Boy Erased and the new HBO series The Outsider. However, even while Hollywood was keeping him busy, Jurriaans never lost his love for straightforward songwriting. “As soon as we started scoring, I started accumulating songs,” he says. “With my creative life consumed by writing film scores, I found catharsis in writing songs - music that wasn’t necessarily dictated by someone else’s story or structure. It was something I needed (and still need).”

‘Beasts’ opening track ‘All Just Talkin’ is a perfect example of Jurriaans’ ability to set heartfelt words to music that shifts and pulls you in surprising directions. “It goes into this weird, psychedelic world,” says Jurriaans. “I was thinking a lot about the Beatles, and unexpected ways of breaking out of song structure. I like the cinematic aspect of songs like ‘A Day In The Life’ where you go into this kind of chaos. It felt right.”

Lyrically, the song sets the tone for the deeply personal themes which Jurriaans explores throughout the record. “The songs deal with a time in my life that was really difficult,” he says. “In my early-to-mid 30s I was dealing with a lot of depression and was coping with it in some pretty dark ways. It's hard for me to revisit that stuff emotionally and bring it up. The songs were written when I was coming out of that period, but they’re about how this darker side of me has stayed with me, and about trying to reconcile how to live with that person.”

Standout track ‘Easy Now’ is one of the most personal songs on an album already filled with soul-searching. The song was first written and performed live during a four-month period when Jurriaans and his Argentinian wife were living in Buenos Aires. “That song very much dealt with our relationship at that time, which was on the rocks for a few years,” he says. “My wife and I would sing it onstage together. It's a song about us, but has since evolved to be about much more.”

While Jurriaans’ has enlisted the skills of numerous friends (including Greg Rogove and Danny Bensi) on the album, many of the instruments are played by himself “to varying degrees of technical skill!”.

It was Jurriaans’ wife, artist Patricia Iglesias, who created the abstract artworks which inspired the name ‘Beasts’. “They were paintings of these strange creatures and animals,” explains Jurriaans. “I love them so much and wanted to use them for the album artwork. When I started to think about what to name the record, ‘Beasts’ worked so well. These songs are creatures that came out of my imagination after lurking in my life for so many years. They're elusive and fantastical, and in some ways terrifying.”

Careful listeners will be hear traces of David Bowie, Scott Walker and even Led Zeppelin, but with ‘Beasts’, Jurriaans has succeeded in crafting a singular, personal record that is wholly his own. That’s what makes the album title an apt one. “Putting out music this intimate is scary,” he says. “It's a beast. The whole album is a beast and each song is a beast.”