“A hundred blowin’ up in the headlines
We’ve seen it all before
The powers are killing the paupers
For some idea of God,
or whatever”

Gentle Spirit is the first official studio album released by Los Angeles, California artist Jonathan Wilson. It was released in the United Kingdom and Europe on August 8, 2011 and in the United States on September 13, 2011 on Bella Union and received the #4 spot on Mojo Magazine’s 2011 Best of Albums of the Year.  The album was recorded at Wilson’s former studio in Laurel Canyon and mixed at his new studio in Echo Park.

Jonathan Wilson records great music and he is fantastic live, I needed some time to get into his mindset, and I must confess that I didn’t understand all the positive reviews this album got at first. We did not include it in our top 25 albums of 2011, it should have been in the top 5. We got the opportunity to see him live in 2012 and that changed everything I thought I knew about Jonathan Wilson. It was a tremendous concert, and when I got home I started to listen to Gentle Spirit in a completely different way. My stats on LastFM tells me it is my most played album of 2012.

Gentle Spirit (acoustic):

Let us listen to some more songs from this fantastic album, here is a set from The KEXP studio.  Recorded April 29, 2012.

Songs:
Desert Raven
Ballad Of The Pines
Can We Really Party Today?
Rolling Universe

Here’s a good desciption from NME:

“It’s never fair to prejudge a singer-songwriters by their titles, but with Jonathan Wilson’s astonishing debut, full of tracks called things like ‘Ballad Of The Pines’ and ‘Canyon In The Rain’, the fact he’s a Laurel Canyon-leaning, old-guard LA acoustician is blindingly obvious. What you don’t get from the names, though, is quite how well he pulls off his CSNY, James Taylor and Matthews’ Southern Comfort-inspired grooves, chucking in healthy shakes of Pink Floyd, Elliott Smith and sunset psychedelia to create some of the most luxurious folk of the year. As California dreamin’ goes, this is almost as good as heading for the hills, reaching for a hand-tooled native American bong and calling yourself Moon Unit. ”
– Leonie Cooper (NME)

Jonathan Wilson will be releasing his follow-up album, Fanfare in a month, we really look forward  to it.

Gentle Spirit on Spotify:

– Hallgeir