Jaenga explores the magical places where you can just be yourself in ‘Nomad’ EP

October 22, 2020

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Patrick McDevitt may not have had his traveling renegade Jaenga bus rolling out onto every major festival campground this year. Still, the newly-uprooted New York artist has certainly been keeping busy during the quarantine. He’s recently released on Deadbeats and has even re-located to Colorado, all in the midst of rolling out tracks from his Nomad EP, which now comes to fruition as a self-release.

“A lot has changed,” Jaenga told CE. “Well, if I’m being totally honest, I lost my dad a few months ago.” It’s the sort of unplanned life event that inspired Jaenga to write his most recent EP, which pays homages to the special place he used to go as a kid to forget about the world.

Since then, I decided to move from New York to Colorado. Kensico is an old abandoned quarry I used to go when I was younger. The type of place you can just explore and live in the moment. I think over time we forget how to see the world in it’s true form—this wonderful, magical place. All the stress in our lives is oftentimes stress we put on ourselves. So, while making this this EP, I often thought back to that place. It reminds me to let go and trust that things will be okay.”
Jaenga

From the EP’s opening track in “Kenisco,” with it’s pulsating bass and amorphous beats, to the beautiful key melodies and drum-n-bass breaks of “Everyday,” to the heavy CoJaxx-assisted track, “Won’t Stop,” each track is laced with heavy bass and shrouded in deeper meaning. On its own, the EP is already an impressive arrangement of bass-laden beats.

Once one learns the truer inspirations behind the four-tracker, however, the Nomad EP becomes coated with a gorgeous intention that says: some emotions are better conveyed through music. When audience members realize the entire EP relates to overcoming his own loss and grief, each of Jaenga’s tracks combines into something more profound, authentic, vulnerable, and honest.