Midnight Jones
Chandler, Arizona, United States | SELF
Music
Press
(Rough translation from French to English) -
The Angry Gospel is probably not the folk album of the year but it is one of
the best I have ever had the chance to meet in early summer.Sincere and spontaneous, it's al...ways very well after 7 or 8 plays, which is often far from the case this year.Recognizing
the difficulty in disseminating his music, Ty Cooper (musician from
Chicago who hides behind the pseudonym Midnight Jones) accepts willingly
put his album to us completely free just hoping that some of us take
the time to listen and appreciate it before, perhaps to buy in good and due form. - Jazz, Blues & Co.
(Rough translation from Italian to English)
“Dance with me”, whisper the shadows of fate. They have outstretched claws and valkyries dresses. “Dance with me, you’ll be free”.
This is the gospel of anger according to Ty Cooper: a tale full of fatal creatures, that appear from the fog and take familiar faces. Lost lovers, sighing lies, burning prayers: under the name of Midnight Jones, they become songs, confessions, fragments of Americana. […]
It would be a mistake to put “The Angry Gospel” under a label: for Ty Cooper it’s rather the landing place of a long musical journey. “I tried electronica and piano pop, but they just weren’t properly communicating the feelings I was trying to get across”, he says. “I’ve chosen a more folkier route because I think folk by nature is just so versatile and pliable. The only thing that I haven’t ever really seen change is my song content: I’ve always written about deep emotional experiences and internal conflict”. […]
The dialogue with tradition is only the starting point. Ty Cooper’s voice is full of pathos and joins Sophia’s naked sincerity and John Darnielle’s solemn intensity. […]
“Anybody can relate to the idea of good vs. evil or man vs. God, and all those conflicts can be easily found within the Greek mythology, the Bible, the Anthology of American Folk Music. Our environment and our moral perceptions may change but the stories never really do”. Between demons, maenads and black souls, Midnight Jones’ songs take the dramatic strength of the Elvis Perkins’ ballads, while the horns reflect Beirut’s colours in the electric veins of “Of Martyrs And Maenads”. […] “I think there is always a constant tension between our idea of sin and our need to be redeemed”, Cooper says. His songs have this tension, as in the question of “Waltzing With The Keres”: “Will I reach that sea black / In the silence of oblivion / Or will I burn inside a pit of hell / As the devil smiles upon me?”.
Ty Cooper’s artistic philosophy is simple: “We must never forget why we started making music in the first place. If I can make just one person laugh, or cry, or dance to anything I write, then I have done my job”. That’s why Cooper made available “The Angry Gospel” as a free download on his official site. With one warning: “All I ask is that you give my music a chance in the hopes that it moves you as much as it moves me”. It’s worth taking up the challenge. Let yourself be enthralled. - ondarock
Discography
The Angry Gospel LP
Photos
Bio
Midnight Jones was initially just a little pet project of mine. After both of my previous two projects disbanded, I was left with an array of unrecorded material and an obsessive need to still be doing music. Although drenched in Alt-Folk and Southern Country hooks and melodies, the music is sometimes reminiscent of my days of playing in a Ska band. My music has gone through multiple different genre changes throughout the years and even to this day I find myself surprised at its continuing need to mutate and to not be contained by just one genre classification.
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