Chris Jack of The Routes ditches his fuzzy 60s psych-garage rippers to drop stunning solo-acoustic debut

Mark E. Smith once said, “The Fall is me and your gran on bongos” (or something along those lines). Undergoing numerous member changes, Chris Jack has led The Routes for 14 years. The albums “In This Perfect Hell” and “Dirty Needles and Pins” could have been classified as solo albums, where the “band” was just Chris, and drummer Jonathan Hillhouse. On the last Routes album “Tune Out, Switch Off, Drop-In”, Chris was joined by English drummer and old friend Bryan Styles (with whom he briefly played in a post-rock band at age 18). Whilst working on the album, Chris was playing around with some acoustic song ideas. He sent demo recordings to a few friends. Action Weekend Records said “Let’s make an album!”, Bryan came in on drums, percussion and glockenspiel and “Miles To Go” was born! 

What? No fuzz!? That’s right! Gone are the snotty vocals and fuzz guitars. There’s no garage here. Chris Jacks' acoustic compositions are accompanied by organ, Rhodes, melodeon, vibraphone and more. Although self-recorded, gone is the hiss and the buzz. The production is lush, sounding like Steve Albini’s work with Low. Although Chris cites his influences on this album as being music from the 80s/90s such as Felt, Silver Jews, Guided By Voices, Galaxie 500, Smog, Beck and Sebadoh; you can hear elements of Velvet Underground, Lemon Drops and many more.

“Miles To Go" is released on Action Weekend Records on 4th November 2020. The LP is limited to 300 copies. You can preorder with a discount via Action Weekend Records Bandcamp page.

The album is available to download or stream on most digital platforms.