Launching a set of songs titled The Dark Matter Singularity Series, Jessi Robertson is reimagining songs from her acclaimed studio album Dark Matter, and she is starting with a smoky and dark remake of one of the album’s most visceral and moving pieces, ‘Shadow War’.
Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Jessi Robertson is a singer and songwriter graced with a powerful and commandeering vocal presence, and a fantastic grasp on dynamics and settling within the arrangement, talents she so effortlessly displays on ‘Shadow War: Singularity’. Having been brought up in a small town in uptown New York, Jessi Robertson’s journey from home, to Brooklyn, and all the way to Nashville have left her with a catalog of starkly honest and vulnerable songs, with such vivid imagery and artistry that garnered her comparisons with icons such as Kate Bush and PJ Harvey, the English and Australian musical visionaries.
‘Shadow War’ was written around the idea of othering, of internally setting up scenarios that drive us away from compassion and from comprehending how similar we all are. This idea is explored on this Singularity version through an ambient atmosphere brought forth by Aaron Berg, an ambience that is highlighted by a buoyant and graceful upright bass line, and a swirling of strings underneath the moving chorus section. The verses are ornamented with a melancholic piano that trickles its few, well calculated notes masterfully, never overtaking the desolate ambience, but never subsiding to let the whole arrangement fall to the void.
A balanced and tasteful release on its own, this version of ‘Shadow War’ got us excited for the whole Singularity series that Jessi is planning to slowly unveil throughout 2026.
