Bonnaroo Band of the Day: Jay Som

As we’ve been doing for the past several years now, we’re making it our mission to help you get acquainted with many of our favorites acts from from Bonnaroo‘s impressive 2017 lineup. As we dig through the entire schedule, we’ll highlight a spread of performers spanning across genres and stages, big and small, new and old, to bring you some of the most interesting, lesser-known, or most highly-reccomened among this year’s crop of artists. Though we’ll be jumping around, we’re loosely working our way through by day, and we’ll also be bringing you some special features and longer guides along the way, to help you plan your weekend before the fest. While these previews won’t span every performer, and might omit some more obvious must-see acts, we hope they’ll serve as a way to help you navigate Bonnaroo’s gargantuan lineup, and to make the most of your busy weekend on the farm!

Grab your tickets right here if you haven’t already, and keep reading to learn more about our Bonnaroo Band of the Day…

LEARN

The live alias of Bay Area multi-instrumentalist Melina Duterte, Jay Som (a name apparently chosen at random via an online baby name generator) started as an outlet for Duterte to craft her obsessively DIY, hyper-personal, intimate, and eclectic bedroom pop, though the young singer, now just 22, has been playing music in some form or another for a decade. After forgoing jazz school, another longtime passion, in favor of concentrating on songwriting and studying recording and production, Melina crafted and self-released a batch a demos, initially under her own name in 2015, that would become the first Jay Som album, re-released first by both Top Shelf and Polyvinyl Records in 2016 as Turn Into, after drumming up an unexpected barrage of internet buzz.

Though more of a compilation than a proper debut, Turn Into earned praise from numerous high profile outlets. After some time on the road in support, Duterte returned home last fall and immediately set to work on a proper followup; the first truly cohesive and purposeful Jay Som release: Everybody Works. Entirely self-recorded and with Melina on every instrument, the album came together in just a few weeks, much of it written on the fly, and feels like an even more exciting leap forward, exploring elements of shoegaze, indie pop, synthpop, punk, folk, and even funk, all funneled through a dreamy, lo-fi lens. Artsy, personal, and emotionally resonant, Jay Som’s latest is without a doubt one of the year’s best under the radar releases, and her Bonnaroo debut, which already y feels almost too buzzy for such a small stage, will without a doubt be one of the highlights of the whole weekend.

LISTEN | “Peach Boy”