Graham Jonson is drawn to the comforts of melody
and noise. How the two conspire in tension, tonally
and atonally, stirring up memory and mood. This
quality animates the technicolor world of quickly,
quickly, the psych-pop project that emanates from
Kenton Sound, his basement studio in Portland,
Oregon. “Everywhere your eye lands, there’s
another curio to marvel over,” noted Pitchfork’s
Philip Sherburne when he visited Jonson’s
recording space for a Rising feature just after the
release of his “strikingly original” 2021 debut LP, The
Long and Short of It. Since then, Jonson formed a
live band, released his Easy Listening EP in 2023,
and navigated the up-and-downs of a young
musician, the sustainability of tours and
relationships. While shaped by personal bouts and
fallouts, his highly-anticipated full-length follow-up
finds Jonson making music that’s universal,
open-ended, and rewarding, like great songwriters
can do. He set out to make a folk album but
couldn’t help coloring it in with noise; a confluence
of lush instrumentation and unexpected sounds.
Ambitious yet intimate, hi-fi yet homespun, the
idiosyncratic songs on I Heard That Noise curve
around the contours of everyday life with warmth,
wit, and dissonance.