2016 has been a surreal and absurd year for most, but what a whirlwind it must have been for Melina Duterte. The San Francisco musician who performs as Jay Som (a moniker meaning “Victory Moon” and pulled from a baby name generator a la Childish Gambino) toured with Mitski and Japanese Breakfast, released a 7” on Fat Possum, opened for Peter Bjorn and John, signed to Polyvinyl, and has been working on a debut LP. This flurry of activity is largely the result of a tipsy decision made on Thanksgiving 2015, when Duterte spontaneously dropped a nine-track collection of “unfinished and finished songs” onto Bandcamp under the name Untitled. “It was completely unplanned,” Duterte told Rookie. “I didn’t even think about the track listing or the album artwork or the order of songs. I have a ton of these songs, and from them I picked nine.”
That these tracks, later retitled as Turn Into, are technically demos is essential to understanding why the collection has been re-released twice, first by Top Shelf and later by Polyvinyl. Each track is a deeply polished offering that reflects Duterte’s past musical experience and forecasts her promising future. She grew up playing the trumpet and planned to attend a conservatory program after high school to pursue her love of jazz. Instead, after realizing that she wanted to continue songwriting, she enrolled at community college to study music production and recording. She turned her bedroom into a studio, even removing the bed to install a drum set and puttered around with the tracks that would become Turn Into. She plays every instrument on the album, a feat that may remind some of Alex G’s home recordings, in addition to mixing and mastering.
Turn Into kicks off with “Peach Boy,” a kaleidoscopic dream-pop number featuring lush vocals and elastic wah-wah guitar effects (appropriately, considering Duterte’s history, early wah pedals were called “Clyde McCoy”s after the jazz trumpeter). Clouds move in for “Ghost” and the daydreaming melodies turn gloomy as Duterte confronts her fears. “Being scared is a huge theme of the album,” Duterte told San Francisco’s KQED, and even its most upbeat, these songs contain undercurrents of anxiety. There are moments on the album where you can feel her audibly pushing against these restraints, like on “Next to Me,” when she calls out “I’m waiting too long I’ve had it I want to scream/And fuck being patient I’m fragile I’m not weak” before disappearing back into the squall.
Turn Into clouds into melancholy during its middle third. “Drown” resembles My Bloody Valentine at their most mellow or Mazzy Star at their murkiest. “Our Red Door” and “Unlimited Touch” feature woozy, extended instrumental swirls that invite you to drift with them. “Why I Say No” and “SLOW” wend slowly back into warmer territory before pale sunlight of the title track pokes through. The slinky guitars and wistful vocals recall Death Cab’s “Your Heart Is an Empty Room,” and confirms that Jay Som is a multifaceted project, capable of painting in multiple shades.
