Just as it had been natural for movie buff Quentin Tarantino to work in a video rental store, it makes perfect sense for Burner Herzog frontman Jasper Leach to work in a music studio. Leach left the Bay for New York City in 2019 after helming a string of bands—including the Myspace-era Myonics, The Symbolick Jews, and Brasil—and wound up setting up mics for synth and audio recording pioneer Walter Sear.
Random Person, the new record from Burner Herzog, is an octupus’ garden, an elaborate arrangement of discrete musical elements Leach collected from rock and roll’s seafloor: the extensive instrumentation and wry lyricism of Jim O’Rourke, the overdriven heartbreak of Pavement, the honk and tonk of The Rolling Stones, the guitar spank of The Strokes. Leach manages a casual authenticity despite enormous attention to detail, and borrows extensively from the old to bring forth something new. Definitely worth a deep dive.
