Hailing from Houston, Texas, Jandek is the musical project of an outsider musician whose name and identity has been a mystery for over 30 years. Since 1978 Jandek has self released over 60 albums of dissonant and often emotionally dissolute folk / blues through his label Corwood Industries.
Jandek often plays a highly idiosyncratic and frequently atonal form of folk and blues that boarder very closely to the avant-garde. Refusing to use any form of traditionalism with structure, chords and tuning, Jandek has created a stylized form of music that’s entirely his own. Lyrically he mirrors the country blues and folk traditions of East Texas, but sonically, he’s in a league of his own.
In 2004 a documentary was released, entitled Jandek on Corwood, it documented Jandek’s recorded history and the people that have had contact with him, which isn’t that many has he’s only granted one interview, and that was back in 1985. Up until this documentary was made no one was certain of identity as no one had had officially met him, some people did have contact but his identity was never released.
The mystery of Jandek’s identity was unveiled in October 2004 when he appeared for the first time live at the 04 Music Festival in Glasgow, Scotland. He’s since made a number of live appearances at festivals like All Tomorrow’s Parties, Pitchfork and SXSW. Up until 2009 Jandek has been playing with musicians from such bands as Tortoise, Grails, Quasi, Grouper, his backing band changed each show. In 2009 he settled on a permanent rhythm section from Glasgow, Scotland, those musicians being Volcanic Tongue records owner and WIRE contributor and David Keenan (Drums) and his partner Heather Leigh Murray.
Heathen Skulls is very proud to present for the first time in Australia, JANDEK!